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Why Qualtrics
Why Qualtrics – Scott Pead – Senior Manager – Software Engineering – Provo
What is your 'why'? How does Qualtrics connect to your ‘why’?
I'm an idealist. I want governments, systems, companies, everything to operate better and that begins with identifying or quantifying how things work and where they break down when they do.
What attracted you to Qualtrics in the first place?
I was doing a lot of machine learning at the time and I realized "Oh my god, they have tons of human-labeled data". The value proposition of X-data just clicked for me.
What was the turning point where you 'had to have the job'?
When the vulture landed in the gardens. The gods had spoken.
Note: There is more to this story that Scott would love to share if interested when visiting Qualtrics.
What does your day look like?
My team is pretty large, so there's a great deal of management process. I try to invest a lot of time in architecture as well, reviewing designs, and thinking about how our day to day operations and customer pain points are telling us where to invest next.
What is your favorite part of your role?
Seeing growth in technical excellence and personal maturity in my reports.
Any tips for someone who is considering a role at Qualtrics?
You are your best career asset. Invest in yourself by taking a growth-oriented position at a company that will challenge you to struggle a little, grow a lot, and diversify your skill set by taking broader responsibility. Don't take the job that pays the most unless it's the job in which you'll grow the most.
What surprised you most about working at Qualtrics?
Having been in the industry for over twenty years, I've seen a lot of lip service to transparency and fairness. At Qualtrics it's actually true. The leadership is fair, transparent, and really aspires to build a really good company, improving every quarter.
What made you want to get into engineering?
Building something that's digitally alive is seductive - we turn keystrokes into digital pulse and rhythm.
What are your aspirations in career/life?
I'd like to pivot into ecological engineering actually at some point. The environmental impact of too many humans and our waste products is just too significant to ignore.
What is your top #LifeHack?
Meditation. It's important to develop a meta-cognitive model of the mental trances or states you utilize in life. Most of our mistakes are made when we are unconsciously in the 'wrong' state for the problem at hand, often because we aren't managing our sleep/diet/exercise/stress correctly. Meditation helps you develop a perspective that allows you to set KPIs on yourself, and start to monitor or program your life and its outcomes.
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Scott is a Senior Manager in Software Engineering at Qualtrics in Provo. He has held similar previous positions at Adobe and other companies. He holds a Bachelors of Computer Science from Brown University. |
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