Capacity is a company that’s built on helping teams do their best work. Because of this, we have a Slack channel dedicated to praising the work of our team members. Once a month, there’s a random raffle that includes everyone who has been thanked or put in the spotlight for their heroic efforts in the office. Only one person is drawn from the raffle, and that person wins the Shout-Out of the Month.
This month, we’re recognizing James Cain, the Software Engineering Team Lead at Capacity. He was originally shouted out for his contribution to our soon-to-be-released Dev Platform. Keep reading to learn more about James and what he looks forward to seeing come from the Dev Platform.
Q. What brought you to Capacity?
When my wife and I decided to move from California to St. Louis, I started looking into startups that were solving interesting problems in the area. I had conversations with multiple people in California and St. Louis, and everyone spoke very highly of Capacity. I was impressed with the level of transparency during the recruiting process and how friendly everyone was in-person. I wanted to work with passionate people solving tough problems, and Capacity was exactly what I was looking for.
I wanted to work with passionate people solving tough problems, and Capacity was exactly what I was looking for.
Q. What did you do before joining the team?
I spent the last 12 years in enterprise software implementation and software/data engineering roles. Most recently, I worked for Apple where I was responsible for growing the Business Intelligence platform used by the Internet Software and Services organization as well as building internal tools for Apple Maps.
Q. As a Senior Developer and Team Lead, what does your typical day look like?
The day starts with dropping my kids off at daycare. Once I’m in the office; I check Slack and JIRA before following-up on any open items before our team stand-up. Then there are a few hours for coding, code reviews, deployments, or product meetings before lunch.
After lunch, I set aside time for product design reviews and 1:1s, and a team check-in to get feedback on what’s going well and if any adjustments are needed. Then I’ll have a 1:1 with my manager.
Once meetings are wrapped up for the day, there are a few hours for code reviews and deployments. I leave the office with enough time to help make dinner at home. I end the day by checking Slack and planning goals for the next day.
Q. Can you tell me a little about the Dev Platform?
The Developer Platform provides an intuitive way for our customers to quickly create applications to integrate Capacity with other API-based systems. For example, if a customer wants to use JIRA inside Capacity, in a way that’s unique to their organization, the Dev Platform allows them to do that. Apps developed on the Dev Platform are easily activated from the Capacity App Center.
Q. What hopes do you have for the Dev Platform now that it’s live?
The Dev Platform democratizes the process of building custom apps, and creates an opportunity to create integrations to a larger pool of people. I’m excited to see the creative apps that will be built by people who wouldn’t traditionally consider themselves devs.
Q. What’s the most “Dev” thing you’ve ever done?
Before I joined a company that had a big data infrastructure, I built a server from scratch, then ran ESXi with a bunch of VMs to demo Cloudera, Presto, MemSQL, and a random assortment of other technology to analyze large data sets. It was a good excuse to play with hardware and a good learning experience at the time.