This past October marked five years at Bridgit for me. When I take time to look back at Bridgit then and now I’m absolutely amazed at the change. In some ways it feels as though I’ve actually worked at a few different companies as Bridgit has undergone several transformations over the years, but there have been some constants: great people and exciting challenges.
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I find myself today leading a development team that’s about the size of the entire Bridgit team when I first joined. We build and ship a high-impact, high-quality product (Bridgit Bench) which has the solid financial backing from our industry to back that statement up. We’re solving real problems for our customers and the work we do has an outsized impact. I’m very proud to be a part of this team and I consider myself incredibly privileged to be working with everyone at Bridgit.
Reflecting on change
As absolutely thrilled as I am with all that we have accomplished over the years, and especially in 2021, I must still acknowledge the challenges which lie ahead. We have more opportunities to address the needs of our customers than you can shake a stick at – but that’s a challenge we’re excited to tackle.
Reflecting on all of the changes we’ve made over the last 5 years, I’ve come to see our ability and willingness to change as a core strength. We never settle. We never accept the mediocre. We experiment. We adapt. We challenge. We evolve. Continual change is a part of our culture.
The changes we’ve made to the team and development processes were deliberate and every single one of them has had a huge impact on our future. I believe the next set of changes will do the same.
New development teams at Bridgit
I’m excited to announce the creation of two new teams in Bridgit’s development organization:
Architecture team – There is a type of work that exists today that is best defined as technical architecture. There are tasks like choosing frameworks, experimenting with new technologies, setting standards, providing top-tier troubleshooting, and the tackling of complex technical changes that just aren’t suited to the well-honed workflows we have. It’s time to give this work a place to thrive; that place is the architecture team.
Data team – The data team will be responsible for building systems, algorithms, flows, and more, that relate to both internal and product-facing data initiatives. This team will be critical in many, if not all, of our features and experiments.
Changing roles & responsibilities
Our exceptionally low defect rates are due to many things. Teamwork. Competency. Communication. And supporting all of that are our efforts in automated testing. There was a time when we had no integration tests and I don’t believe we could have achieved the results we have today without them. We are now putting the responsibility for maintaining automated tests on those most capable of doing so: our developers.
As former automation testers move to our DevOps and software development teams, I’m excited to see us opening up this sort of career path for testers here at Bridgit. For more information about our job postings, check out our careers page.
Final thoughts
I‘m excited by the changes that lie ahead as we continue to carve out our place in the construction tech world. Changes that are being made with careful thought and solicitation of feedback and opinions. That doesn’t mean we haven’t missed something. As always, we will continue to experiment and iterate to keep things on track. As mentioned earlier, change is a part of our culture. I hope everyone at Bridgit is as happy to be a part of this growing team as I am to have them here. That is, and will always remain, a top priority for the development team here at Bridgit.
