How I pulled my dad out of retirement to come work with me, again
Ever since I was a kid, I looked up to my dad and his profession as a programmer. His stories about programming with punch hole cards in the ’80s and mainframe computers always fascinated me. I’ve been amazed at how fast and how vastly our technology has changed over this relatively short period of time.
I credit my dad’s passion for creating utility from code as being the impetus for my love of technology. Having computers at home at an early age made me curious and by the age of 10, he had me coding in Pascal and going to programming camps.
In high school, I continued to take advanced programming classes and thoroughly enjoyed the craft of creating value for people out of mere lines of text. At the same time, I was also taking classes on psychology and ethics which got me interested in how people think and process information.
The passion for technology that my dad instilled in me led me to the University of California, Berkeley where I discovered the field of Cognitive Science. Cognitive Science had the perfect mixture of studying cognitive psychology and programming for AI. Towards the end of my studies (circa 2004) I figured out I was interested in how to make software more usable and “ergonomic” for people (the term “user experience” barely existed at the time).
Fast forward a few years and I was well into my career in the field of user experience. Come 2011, I was working at Talkspace, which at the time was just starting out with 5 of us working out of a basement. We were running out of funding and had just pivoted to a new business model. In true start-up fashion, everything was uncertain. At the same time, mobile apps and the iPhone were exploding culturally and technology limits were being pushed.
Our Head of Product and I were convinced therapy should be mobile and texting with a licensed therapist was a product people needed. Building a mobile app was not only risky but also expensive, and our CEO didn’t want to invest money or time in such a risky endeavor.
That’s when I realized I needed my dad’s help. At the time, my dad had been retired for 10 years after working as a database architect and back-end engineer for companies such as Intel. My dad was growing bored of retirement and was very keen on learning emerging and exciting new mobile technologies. I saw the perfect match in front of me, we pitched the idea to our CEO, and soon he was on the team.
Throughout his career whenever he needed to learn new languages, my dad just immersed himself and learned through trial and error. This time was no different for him and soon he was coding in xCode. At Talkspace, we collaborated very closely–me designing the UX and him coding the app.
The mobile app we built together turned out to be a huge success that today makes up a fundamental part of a billion-dollar company!
After the successful project, my father was officially out of retirement and went on to work at another company, but eventually did retire again.
Another 10 years after his second retirement, I needed his help again. A close friend of mine had a startup idea and during this same period, I witnessed my father searching for a new challenge and becoming very interested in a new programming language — React Native. I suggested I design the app and my dad would develop it. Once again, I had pulled my dad out of retirement. He taught himself a new language and this time he also set up the entire infrastructure.
Whenever my dad ran into issues that were too big for him to bite off, he would consult my HoneyBook co-worker and one of the finest React Native engineers — Elad Gelman. Amazingly, me and my dad were able to ship meetsmart.io to the App Store in 6 months!
Fast forward to 2021 and I have pulled my dad out of retirement once more–this time at HoneyBook.
Since we’ve been scaling and growing unprecedentedly, I recognized a need for managing and optimizing our databases. Knowing my dad had handled similar projects in prior positions and has always had a knack for learning new technologies, I knew I had to connect him with Inon, our VP of Engineering.
There has been a steep learning curve for my dad at HoneyBook. He hadn’t witnessed how a modern tech company operates for a good 20 years. The layers of complexity and technologies had changed immensely.
Despite these facts, Inon agreed to give him a chance, and it has paid off!
And that’s what I love about HoneyBook — we are truly fearless. We recognize that talent from non-traditional backgrounds is an advantage. When people are hungry to learn and are naturally talented, great things happen.
My dad has been working with us for over a year now. While I don’t get to work with my dad on a day-to-day basis, it’s a great feeling knowing we are both contributing to HoneyBook’s mission. It’s amazing to see the impact he’s had in such a short time.
I hope that this isn’t the last time I pull my dad out of retirement!
