CertifID Work-Life Balance & Wellbeing

Tell us about your usual day working remotely. 

I often start my day by checking Slack on my phone while getting up. I’ll flag any messages that require follow-up with a “Remind me about this...” so I can revisit later in the morning.

I’ll typically sit down at my desk around 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m., read any remaining Slack messages and follow up on anything I’d tagged earlier. Our team check-ins are midday Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I’ll have occasional one-on-one meetings or other meetings scheduled throughout the day. 

My projects involve a range of data engineering, business analytics and working with internal teams on questions. I help build and maintain some of our ELT data pipelines and code. I also build a range of analyses, reports and dashboards for our teams to use, and have created some rudimentary forecasting for key business metrics.

I have a pretty normal schedule — roughly 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I’m in Seattle, and our team has been great about finding meeting hours that work across our different time zones. In the rare case when I miss a meeting, I catch up watching the recording later.

What habits or routines help you to thrive as a data engineer in a remote environment? 

I use a spare bedroom as an office. That helps create a separate space for work. Over the years, I’ve found that physical distinction has eased the daily transition between work and life. 

I adopted a puppy named Cricket last summer, which created a new daily routine. Each morning, I’ll take her for a walk around the block before starting my day. When my pup is not at daycare, I try to get her out for a few walks throughout the day, which also gives me a break from looking at a screen. There’s a small park and trail near my home, so I have plenty of opportunities to get a quick break and enjoy some nature and fresh air — even with Seattle’s winter drizzle.

I’ve found that working from home can make me more sedentary, which is a constant challenge. My best work comes when I’m working out a few times each week. I would absolutely recommend to anyone else to prioritize staying active — however works for them and however they can!
 

How do you balance “heads-down” concentration with collaborative work while working remotely?

We use Slack nearly exclusively for communication at CertifID. Half of our employees are remote, and the rest are in our Austin or Grand Rapids offices. Everyone does a great job staying inclusive with Google Meet, Zoom or a quick Slack Huddle. I never worry about missing out on conversations that way. I also get to catch up with folks in-person during quarterly visits to one of our offices.

With just two of us on the data team right now, I’ve been able to maintain focus time in my schedule. Even when our team grows in the future, we’ll be able to prioritize our work and enable team members with self-service tools.

For asynchronous updates, Loom videos are really helpful for complex topics or analyses. I often record a short video walkthrough to share a completed project. That helps avoid meetings and keeps projects moving forward.

We’ve also started building connections in our weekly companywide meeting. I’ll occasionally ask everyone to make a guess about a topic as varied as future mortgage rates to product adoption. It’s a fun way to promote analytical thinking from everyone, especially with many of us working remote.