October 11, 2024
Read Time: ~9 minutes
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<aside> đź“Ž James Garrett shares his journey from a struggling Computer Science student to a passionate software developer. Learn how Empower drives innovation through meaningful metrics, smart optimizations, and a vibrant culture where work is more than just code. From cave diving algorithms to team hackathons and fostering a supportive work environment, this post is a testament to the power of curiosity, collaboration, and making development enjoyable!
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When I first started coding, I struggled through Computer Science classes, feeling ready to give up. But a project sparked my curiosity and passion—writing a decompression algorithm for cave diving. That experience taught me that coding can be fun, and the technical challenges less daunting when you're engaged.
At that age, I was actively cave diving almost every weekend. For those who scuba dive and are reading this, you know that the longer you stay down the slower you have to come up to avoid “the bends”. I became curious as to why the up and down pattern in the Devils Ear Cave System sent so many divers to the decompression chamber, and started writing a (very hacky) decompression algorithm software. This project, aimed at understanding the Bühlmann ZH-L 16 and Varying Permeability Model (VPM) for dives that had a complex profile, was far more difficult than anything I encountered in class. They key thing here is I was having fun and the technical challenges didn’t seem all that technical because of it.
After college I worked at a start-up that did a lot of fun things. We were the first FAA approved iPad app for pilots to access their manuals while flying. Later we extended that to other forms and even Dispatch Releases. This period allowed me to travel to various states/countries for sales and implementation support, as well as “developer weeks” where the entire development team flew into Wisconsin and had hackathon style collaboration. It was one of the most challenging but fun periods in my career.
At this stage in life I’m now a new parent as are a significant portion of my co-workers. Actually, one cool thing about working at Empower is the great support Empower gives for new parents with up to 16 weeks of paid leave for the primary parent, a benefit that almost 7% of our employees have taken advantage of year to date!
Family commitments mean that the brute force of staying up all night to build something you’re really proud of isn’t an option anymore. When you combine this with having had so many awesome experiences over 10+ years of professionally coding, sometimes it’s hard to celebrate the wins and make sure it’s still fun.