Like most folks on Kard’s engineering team, programming is my second-act career. And it may have saved my life.
I graduated with a biology degree and got accepted to PA school. Since I was a medical geek, I assumed working in a hospital or clinic would be an exciting environment for me. I hated it.
Interacting with sick people was grim, and I found myself unintentionally feeding off of the negative energy. After a while, it was taking so much of a toll on my mental health that I dropped out.
Some of my friends were developers and reminded me how much I enjoyed CS courses in undergrad. They encouraged me to take some courses to refresh my knowledge. So I gave it a shot.
One of those friends mentioned that their startup needed a part-time consultant and threw my hat into the ring. That was my first real software engineering job — and, unlike PA school, it was right up my alley. I thought, ‘I could make a career out of this.’ I scored my next role at Kard, and I’ve never looked back. Below, I recount my journey and why I’ve stayed for nearly eight years.
An engineer of one
After my short stint as a consultant, I struck up a conversation with an acquaintance of mine who happened to be the lead engineer at a company called Kard.
They were looking for some more help, so she recommended I chat with Ben MacKinnon, Kard’s CEO.
I was nervous coming into the interview and dressed in what I thought was the part — a nice shirt, nice pants, nice shoes. Not the most comfortable get-up for me, but I hoped it would give off a good impression, showing I was ready for corporate life.
Ben showed up in shorts and flip-flops. He was calm, said all the right things about the company, and seemed to know a lot about the space.
We clicked from the get-go.
Then, a few weeks after I’d accepted Ben’s offer, my friend decided to leave Kard. To me, it was tragic. I panicked a lot. But ultimately, the pressure to make it work, to be scrappy, to learn on the fly, and to work with someone I jibe with has made me the engineer I am today.
Never a dull moment
I don’t think I’ve ever been bored at Kard — even in the hardest of times.
Right after I became Kard’s sole engineer, Ben found out we’d been accepted into a Barclays accelerator. Normally, we would’ve celebrated, but that honor turned out to be a big dilemma: the program was in-person in Tel Aviv.
I was about to get married, and there was no way I would spend three months in Israel right before my wedding. So Ben went by himself, and I came into the office every day, working on whatever he’d just learned the day before.
The accelerator pushed me to develop a whole new set of skills in security, infrastructure, and any other technical components in the curriculum. In some ways, working in totally different time zones was a blessing in disguise.
I had the freedom to explore these concepts in more depth and breadth and brainstorm potential solutions while Ben focused on the other aspects of the business. It was a big learning curve for both of us, but it was tremendously exciting.
There have been many other “pushing ourselves to the limit” moments. Like when we signed our first contract with a neobank, Ben, Harper, and I had to scramble to go live within the customer’s tight timeframe. But we pulled it off. In three months, I built out much of what is still Kard’s foundational API today.
Deep respect for people
We don’t have as many of these do-or-die moments today as we did back then, but we still operate at a fast clip. What makes Kard so special, though, is that our pace doesn’t come at the sacrifice of our people.
At Kard, everyone cares about your mental health. Managers are encouraged to ask direct reports how many hours they’re putting in — not to work them harder but to help them maintain greater work-life balance. I’ve never received that level of attention and care anywhere else.
Another unique aspect of our culture is the open-mindedness of upper management. They welcome constructive criticism and are always working to improve employee and customer experiences. They are fully committed to a flexible work environment and are very much ‘Do your own thing as long as you finish your work’ types of leaders.
Consistent growth
About two or three years ago, I started thinking more about what I wanted out of my career, and management felt like where I wanted to go next. Kard made it happen, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
As Director of Engineering, I see people growing and evolving every single day, learning new things. I take great pride in making sure that, like me, they never get bored. Figuring out what my direct reports want out of work and how to give it to them is a fascinating puzzle.
Thankfully, our engineering stack is quite robust, so there’s plenty of room for them to dive into reporting, frameworks, libraries, cloud computing, API work, you name it.
Want to work at a place where your boss actually cares about your progress and well-being? Apply to one of our open roles today.
Bonus round: Rituals and obsessions
A Kard ritual I enjoy
Instead of a ritual, I’d like to reiterate my pride in our team and where we are today. We had explosive growth after our Series A round and added a bunch of new hires across the board. At the time, I was hesitant about onboarding so many people so quickly. But they’ve proven me wrong.
Hiring that much that fast was necessary for us to level up, and it’s been a joy to meet and work with talented, well-mannered people who get along so well. And that may be the most important thing — you could be the smartest person in the world, but at the end of the day, you build as a team, so good dynamics are critical.
What I’m obsessed with
Stocks. Trading is all about managing risk; you know you’re never fully in control. You may think some play has a 60-80% chance of going your way, but then the market throws you totally out of the loop. That forces you to wonder what’s happening behind the scenes. What’s the psychology behind how money is moving? It’s all very enticing.
My other obsession is golf. I got into it because my wife plays, and her friends convinced me to come along. In some ways, I regret it. I had no idea how hard it was to hit a ball sitting on a little stick. I couldn’t believe how difficult it was, let alone how driven I’d be to surmount that challenge. Two and a half years later, I’m still at the driving range almost daily, perfecting my shot.