Why Qualtrics – Dylan Martin – Software Engineer – Seattle, WA

I've always enjoyed the intersection of ambiguity and specificity. I think there's true beauty in it. Growing up, my parents (who are academics) encouraged me to be curious and push the boundaries of my knowledge. I remember days in my youth where I'd wander around the mountains of Colorado looking at all the cool flora and fauna and trying to figure out just why things were the way they were. At the end of the day, I'd hang out with my folks over dinner; we'd meditate on what I'd seen and work together to tease meaning out of the newness that I observed.

As a software engineer with Qualtrics, every day feels a little bit like being a kid again. I get the freedom to dive deep into complex problems with my trusty toolkit of intuition, software knowledge, and "print" statements. At the end of each adventure, I huddle with my team, wrap up what I've discovered, and bring just a bit more insight into our world. The problems Qualtrics is solving in the engineering world are vast and new. So naturally, I get excited to work on them every day.

What attracted you to Qualtrics in the first place?

I was attracted to Qualtrics because of the immense opportunity for personal and professional growth that exists here. I joined Qualtrics 2 weeks after graduating from college; a wide-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrad with some technical degrees, a little bit of research experience, and no real idea what the tech world was like. But I was excited by it; I knew I wanted to make a splash in tech, I just wasn't sure where that splash would be.

Qualtrics has given me every opportunity to both explore my interests and make an impact at the same time. Since joining, I've worked in support, as an engineering individual contributor, as an engineering leader, and finally back to an individual contributor in a bigger role on a new team. And I've been given nothing but support and encouragement by everyone here along the way. I'm confident that Qualtrics will continue to provide amazing opportunities for anyone who comes in with ambition, curiosity, and grit.

What is your favorite part of your role?

My favorite part of my role is that my team is working on the cutting edge of our technological space. I can't get into too many specifics in this post, but to summarize, generally, my team works against the highest amount of traffic across any team at Qualtrics. As a result, we're working on some really interesting high-efficiency optimizations in order to make sure that we can still delivery top-tier experiences to customers as we continue to scale our users exponentially.

No one has really solved these types of problems before, and so my role feels like that of a scientist; my team and I spend a lot of time theorizing, designing, and testing hypothetical solutions until we come to one that will work for our use case. It's incredibly satisfying to be pushing the envelope of what we know.

How have you become involved in community at Qualtrics?

I'm a big intramural sports buff; so, one of my favorite ways is through playing sports with my coworkers. While I don't currently play on all of these teams, I've been part of Qualtrics-affiliated soccer, frisbee, flag football, and basketball teams. As a member of these teams, I've not only had a blast playing sports that I love, I've gotten the opportunity to get to know my coworkers as not only peers but teammates. It's also been a great way for me to meet people on different product teams that I ordinarily wouldn't interact with.

Qualtrics is growing, and if you're ready to find your "why" at a place like this, you can explore our open opportunities at any time by visiting our career page. Looking to discover more reasons "Why Qualtrics"? You can find the whole series here.

Want to chat? You can get in touch by checking out Qualtrics Life on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Dylan is an alumnus of Whitman College & started his career at Qualtrics. Outside of work, he enjoys tinkering with compilers, trying to wrap his head around NLP, hacking stuff that people on the internet say he shouldn't, & building stupid Twitter bots. He tries to drag himself away from screens as much as possible & when he does, he is hiking, rock climbing, skiing, playing ultimate frisbee and soccer, & performing piano & guitar.