Employee Spotlight: Briannon Schaeffer

Tell us about yourself and how long you’ve been with Optimal Dynamics.

I’ve been with Optimal Dynamics for 3.5 years! I grew up in Silicon Valley, then I moved to the Seattle area 12 years ago.

Can you briefly summarize your job?

I’m a Senior User Experience Developer – I work on our product UI! My team builds out the wonderful website that our customers use everyday.

What inspired you the most to join Optimal Dynamics?

The prospect of better optimizing trucking routes, and thus helping lessen the impacts of climate change. I also wanted to pivot to a smaller company for a friendlier atmosphere.

What do you like best about our company culture?

I’ve spent most of my career with really large companies and so Optimal Dynamics is a nice change of pace since it’s smaller, and a majority of us are fully remote which offers a lot of flexibility. I really like that we’re a diverse team, and we have a water cooler simulator that shuffles us up to randomly meet other people around the company in addition to our annual Summit meeting.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I like working with our UX Designer Bryan Moreno-Sanchez to further refine designs. I’m going back to school to get a Masters in UX Design this fall, actually!

How does your work impact our product, and, therefore, the industry? 

Building a delightful user experience is important to grow customer trust in our product. Making sure that what we’re building makes sense for the industry, that the data is easily understood, and that everything works properly.

What have been your biggest accomplishments on our team, and what was the impact on the company?

Launching Source was really exciting! One stop shop for the best freight to fill gaps in the network. Macroexplainability is another big one for helping earn user trust that the decisions being provided by our engine work well for their company. I’m also proud of some internal tools that help onboard customers and enable us to build robust products with a consistent experience.

How have you grown professionally while on our team?

So many ways! Since the company is small we work heavily cross team which has deepened my interpersonal skills. I’ve also learned from my fellow frontend engineers about more capabilities of the React framework. There’s also industry specific knowledge, which I’ve picked up on the job.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I figure skate! I’m at the rink 3-4 days a week building skills, and I compete with my Synchronized Skating Team the Washington Ice Emeralds. Additionally, I do trivia regularly, play a lot of Tabletop Games, and knit a bunch.

Can you share a hidden talent no one knows about you?

I’m really good at writing mirror-image (backwards).

What’s the best advice you can give to someone who wants to work at Optimal Dynamics?

There’s a bunch of domain specific knowledge that you’ll pick up on the job, so ask questions when you don’t understand something.