We are so pleased to welcome Brian Kozik, Software Engineer, to the team. You can learn more about Brian below.
Tell us about yourself. Where are you from?
I grew up in the Cleveland suburbs before falling in love with the West and moving out to Denver. I loved biking in the Metroparks, running 5Ks all around Northeast Ohio, and curling up inside with a good book on a bad weather day. I can do the same things here–bad weather days are just a lot less common with 300 days of sunshine! I still love reading, but I can do it just as well in my hammock.
Where did you go to school?
Arizona State University!
How did you get into software engineering? What areas of your field do you like to focus on?
I started out as a kid, jailbreaking iPhones and flashing custom ROMs on Android. I loved getting extra functionality that the phone wasn’t “supposed to” have. This was absolutely addicting, and soon enough I got into building apps that did the same thing in a more legitimate way.
Do you have a code of ethics or a mantra that you live by when doing your work?
What are the three most important factors in successful software development? Communication, communication, communication! It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but there’s a nugget of truth there.
If you don’t communicate well enough with the client, you might build the wrong thing. If you don’t communicate well enough with your team while you build the product, your process will be slow and prone to mistakes. If the finished product doesn’t communicate well enough with the user, it will be frustrating to use and might not get used at all!
How do our core values (collaboration, initiative, ingenuity) align with your own?
See my above answer for collaboration!! I think that working somewhere where people aren’t empowered to take initiative is incredibly frustrating. Conversely, working somewhere where everyone takes initiative is fantastic. So much gets done, so little gets left behind. Everyone feels a sense of responsibility for what they’re doing, and that means so, so much. Ingenuity? Who doesn’t want to be clever and be around clever people that you can learn from! I’ve always had the attitude that there is always room for improvement – everywhere! It doesn’t mean that something isn’t being done “good enough,” just that it’s possible to be better.
What do you want to learn in the next 12 months as a software engineer? What do you want to learn about the web development industry?
I worked at a very small, very new company for the past five years, so I’m looking forward to learning from the depth of experience that Buckeye has built up over the past fifteen years! At my previous company, we did 90% mobile development, so I’m really looking forward to diving deeper into web development and learning–honestly–everything.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
You gotta dance. As long as the music plays. You gotta dance. Don’t even think why. Start to think, your feet stop. Your feet stop, we get stuck… You gotta keep the step. You gotta limber up. You gotta loosen what you bolted down. You gotta use all you got.” – Haruki Murakami
What is the one thing most people don’t know about you?
I adore cheesy, campy, over the top movies and screwball comedies. Airplane!, Wet Hot American Summer, and What’s Up, Doc? are three of my favorite movies ever.
