In this edition of All Things Upside we chat with Patti Carter, Senior Software Engineer II. Read on to learn about the skills she finds most important to thrive as an engineer, her career journey and growth at Upside, and what she values most about our culture! 

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Upside: What brought you to Upside?

Patti: Listening to Alex Kinnier, our CEO, talk about the value that Upside can provide our users and merchants is what brought me to Upside. Upside’s unique business model, profit share only off of incremental revenue, is a profoundly fair deal. I think the success we’ve seen in the past five years reflects that.

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Upside: What resonates the most with you about Upside’s culture?

Patti: I’ve always appreciated Upside’s commitment to transparency. It’s important to me to understand the big picture of what I’m working on, and I’ve always had that context while working here. Like any scaling company, we’ve been through both ups and downs in the past few years and it’s that commitment to squarely facing problems and solving them that’s always pushed us forward.

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Upside: What are the most important skills to be successful in your role/profession?

Patti: Technical skills are the obvious ones, but effective software engineering also requires effective teamwork and communication. The code that you write doesn’t only need to be comprehensible to a computer – it also needs to be comprehensible to your teammates.

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Upside: How has Upside supported your career growth goals?

Patti: Great mentorship at Upside allowed me to grow from a junior to a senior developer in my time here. I’ve learned so much, not only about software development and architecture but also about the tech and retail industries and how startups iterate, improve, and grow. It’s been great to grow with the company.

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Upside: What’s the day-to-day of your role like?

Patti: I’m happy to say that most of my days right now are spent coding and designing new systems. There’s nothing better than starting up a new Python project with a fresh cup of coffee.

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Upside: Favorite books you’ve read lately?

Patti: I’m a huge science fiction fan and I really enjoyed Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan series last year. Her books are a great reflection on language and technology and her prose is excellent. She deserved the Hugo Award - check out the series!

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