Life @ MadHive: Senior Software Engineer Edition

Life at a startup can be intense, especially for a software engineer. In this edition of “Life @ MadHive,” we’ll be following Matthew Casebeer, Senior Software Engineer on our Engineering team. Matthew joined the company six months ago and he belongs to the permanently remote set of MadHivers. Each day is different for Matthew, but if he’s lucky he’s able to squeeze in a five mile run, design board games, and play late night hockey — in addition to adding lines to the MadHive codebase.

First, a little about Matthew:

• He’s born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, where he currently lives with his family.
• In his free time, he likes to play sports and design tabletop games. He recently published a strategy-based card game titled “Zine Game.”
• He hosts his own podcast called “No Life Kings” in which he discusses comic books and movies. Speaking of movies, Matthew’s a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness.

6:00am
Matthew gets out of bed and starts his day. He kicks it off by reading with his son and fueling up with Kashi cereal and coffee (though at times, he’s jealous of his son’s fruity pebbles).

9:00am
Matthew sits down at his neon-lit command center and checks over his priority tasks for the day. He gets to work making digital pixels dance across his screens.

12:00pm
After an intense morning, he’s ready to stretch his legs. Most days, he tries to squeeze in a run at lunch and today he opts for a (lazy) five miles around his neighborhood. When he gets back, he re-fuels with a bowl of spicy egg drop soup.

1:00pm
Matthew attends his team’s daily standup meeting to discuss their respective action items. They are in the middle of building updates that will be reflected in the next sprint of product development.

1:15pm
Matthew returns to making pixels dance across his screens. He starts listening to EBM (Electronic Body Music) to get in the zone and power through the coding session.

3:00pm
Today, Matthew’s team is gearing up for a big product launch. They gather together and watch their newest software go live and start being used by MadHive clients.

6:00pm
After a busy afternoon of coding, Matthew steps away from his command center to sit down with his family for dinner. He enjoys giving his eyes a rest and hearing about what his son and partner have been up to all day.

7:00pm
It’s about that time for Matthew’s son to get ready for bed, so Matthew reads him Marvel’s Black Panther storybook — one of their favorites.

8:00pm
Matthew fully decompresses by playing tabletop games and watching TV with his partner.

10:00pm
Matthew’s lunchtime run didn’t quite fulfill his daily exercise goal, so he throws on his hockey gear and gets some puck time in.

11:00pm
After unleashing his inner Gretsky, Matthew winds down with a little nighttime reading. Tonight he dives into The Fifth Elephant by Terry Prachett before finally calling it a day.

And that’s a wrap! We hope you’ve enjoyed this sneak peek into the daily life of a MadHive software engineer. Like most startups, no two days are the same at MadHive. Our software engineers are taking on exciting challenges and new products each day. Stay tuned for more “Day in the Life” posts, and check out our Careers page if you’re interested in learning more about our company.