From refactoring code to parenting chaos, Laura brings equal parts focus and humor to everything she does. Her approach to work, and life, embodies one of Kion’s core cultural strengths: taking the work seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. Whether she’s improving product performance, swapping parenting stories in Slack, or diving into Donut chats with teammates across the company, she’s all about making things better.
Read on to learn more about Laura’s take on Kion’s engineering culture, how she keeps code (and life) running smoothly, and why #nobodycaresaboutyourkids is actually one of her favorite Slack channels.
What has your experience been with our company culture?
Our company culture is about taking the work seriously without taking ourselves seriously. We are committed to making the best product possible for our users, but we don’t get so caught up in the work that we can’t have fun or be silly together. I love talking to people across the company whom I might not otherwise interact with during our biweekly Donut meetings, and our company Slack emoji game is top-notch.
What parts of our mission do you connect with?
I appreciate our goal of being 1% better every day. If I focus on learning something new, or refactoring a piece of code, or any other small change, and do that as often as I can, the little changes add up to big differences over time.
What’s the most unique part about working here?
It’s unusual for an engineer to work somewhere that deliberately carves out time for refactoring and tech debt. We have buy-in at all levels of the company, and while time spent on non-feature work may not have an immediate, obvious benefit for our customers, it pays off in the long run by making our product more stable and easier to expand.
How have you grown professionally while on our team?
The volume of data our application must interact with is much larger than in my previous engineering experiences, so it’s pushed me to focus on creating more efficient code. I’ve always had a strong focus on writing clean and maintainable code, but my past year at Kion has prompted me to look for the small differences that can make big-time savings when managing a lot of information, which then leads to happier users.
What’s your favorite Slack channel at Kion?
It’s a toss-up between #random and #nobodycaresaboutyourkids (we do, in fact, care about each other’s kids!). I like the whole-company conversations in #random about everything from current events to an informal desktop item Jenga contest. #nobodycaresaboutyourkids is a fun place to share pictures of our kids and offer support to each other as working parents.
What keeps you busy outside of work hours?
My family. My husband and I have two boys. It’s never a dull (or quiet!) moment around here, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Outside of that, I love to read and bake.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and who was it from?
I was on a career panel once, where another panelist advised trainee software developers to look at a company through the lens of whether it treats engineers as people who make the company money or cost the company money and always try to work for the former. I’ve seen the difference that mindset can make first-hand—it significantly impacts company culture, productivity, and employee satisfaction. (Kion is, of course, in the first category!)
About the Author
Ashley Camara
Ashley is our People Operations Manager at Kion.
