We’ve been working remotely at Capacity since March 2020 like many other companies. While the transition from in-office to remote work has made it harder to connect with new employees when we onboard them, it has also opened up the opportunity to hire out-of-state employees. We want to make sure our newest team members feel as welcome as possible even if we don’t see them every day. If you’re reading this article, do us a favor and give them a shout via LinkedIn!
Meet Adam Galinski.
Adam joined Capacity in March 2021. He decided to apply after reading our workplace values. “The job opening described Capacity’s work environment and values, and it sounded exactly like the type of team I wanted to be part of,” explained Adam.
Before joining Capacity, Adam spent the last decade supporting medical providers and patients with technical and cybersecurity support as an IT Manager and HIPAA Security officer. He managed IT projects, a technical team, and organization security on behalf of the staff, providers, and patients. “I love being a team player and finding ways to make people’s lives easier. I’m passionate about security and helping people protect themselves and others,” said Adam.
In his new role, he is excited to be supporting an AI solution. “I believe AI is the future of technology and society,” said Adam. “I’m excited to provide and improve company security as my way of contributing to this goal.”
When asked what stands out most about Capacity, he mentioned the way we take care of our employees. “Every company claims they do this, but not every company walks the walk. I’ve only been here a month, but I can tell Capacity strives to take care of its team members.” shared Adam.
Fun Fact: When he’s not reading federal regulation for fun, Adam likes to sing and play guitar in a band (that sadly only plays virtually for now), play video games or D&D, and hang out with my family. Oh, and did we mention that Adam can still access his original AOL e-mail address?
Meet Charlie Garavaglia.
Charlie joined Capacity in February 2021. He was originally requesting information about what a Python Developer at Capacity looked liked, and as he progressed through the process, it became clear to him that Capacity was full of motivated individuals working on an interesting problem. “Each interview left me more excited at the prospect of being a part of such a capable team,” said Charlie. “It has been my goal to find ways to use AI to free up people’s energies for the things humans are best at including making connections, building relationships, and having enough leisure time to think of the Next Big Thing™️.”
Before joining Capacity, Charlie worked for Captiva Applied Solutions and Federal Strategies, two small veteran-owned partner companies, as a Statistical Developer in the range safety space. During the pandemic, Charlie was also a Mentor for LaunchCode’s CoderGirl data science cohort, a six-month free program that covers Python, statistics, and machine learning. “I found it immensely rewarding to work towards correcting the gender disparity in tech and give back to an excellent organization,” explained Charlie.
In his new role, he’s most excited to learn from the talented members of the AI and Engineering teams. “I have already noticed the Customer Success team has done a great job of communicating the wins back to the company at large; it’s a great feeling to know how your work has improved someone’s life,” said Charlie. “I hope we can leverage novel NLP approaches to enable further “cognitive offloading” and information centralization for our customers.”
When asked what stands out most about Capacity, he mentioned Capacity’s leadership through its actions and of its sister organization, Prepare.ai, to shine a spotlight on the AI innovation that is happening in St. Louis, MO. “The commitment to the region is admirable and immediately evident through the Create a Loop education non-profit as well,” said Charlie. “For a startup, which is an inherently risky endeavor, to fully embody the ethos of giving back to the community, it definitely stands out.”
Fun Fact: Charlie shared one of the most unique experiences of his life, which involves the picture featured in this article. He was selected for a NASA Social, where social media followers were invited to NASA facilities to observe and disseminate information about significant events. He was invited to tour behind the scenes at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, sit in and ask questions during a live news conference, and meet the astronaut, Kay Hire. “Most significantly, we were allowed a closer view of a rocket launch,” said Charlie. “I still get chills thinking about the tearing, ripping sound that vibrates you as that towering column of smoke and fire lifts off the ground and bends towards the curvature of the earth and its mission to resupply the ISS.” He highly recommends anyone to go see a night launch and shared a story that one of his friends from the event wrote about it. Check it out!
Meet Justin Lake.
Justin joined Capacity in February 2021. He came from a heavy corporate background and has spent the majority of his career at companies with thousands of employees. He spent a few years at another smaller startup and enjoyed being able to interact with everyone at the company. Reflecting on the interview process, he said that “every person I talked to before starting at Capacity left a good impression, which made me that much more excited to join the team.”
Before joining the team, Justin was a UI/UX Engineer at Express Scripts as part of the Design System Team. This small team consisted of front-end engineers, designers, and other UX-focused staff dedicated to establishing the company’s brand identity, creating a scalable and reusable UI, and ensuring hundreds of other engineers abided by the UX standards of the team.
Before joining Capacity, Justin felt limited in what he could do in his previous roles. “With software engineering constantly changing and introducing new concepts and ideas, it was difficult to keep up with the times with limited resources and support,” said Justin. “Whereas at Capacity I’ve found that it’s encouraged to research and try new things.”
When asked what stands out to him the most about Capacity, he mentioned the camaraderie from the peers on his team and leadership even up to the CEO, David Karandish. “I can reach out to them for whatever reason, big or small,” explained Justin. “It may sound cliché, but Capacity has given me the impression of a big extended family and I can just have a simple chat with anyone.”
Fun Fact: Justin has an extensive video game collection that has been expanding ever since he worked at Best Buy 15+ years ago. And because he considers himself a “completionist”, wanting to do everything there is to do in a game before he picks up the next one, many of those games (100+ by now) have sat unplayed (dozens even left unopened) on the shelf for nearly as long.
We’re so glad to have the opportunity to work with these individuals, and we look forward to seeing everything we accomplish together as a team!