New Crew Member: Tricia DiPiazza
Tricia DiPiazza joins the crew as one of our new mobile developers, and we're super excited to learn from her expert iOS knowledge!
Tricia not only brings extensive mobile experience, but also one of Ten Forward's only employee dogs, Winnie.
(Do we already have a Slack emoji for Winnie? Of course we do.)
Read on for more about Tricia, including her love of Ron Swanson and Dana Scully, how chocolate milk led her to programming, and which video game causes her to tear up.
What brought you to Ten Forward?
“I was at my last job for about nine years, and had begun to feel that I was running out of room to grow and try new things. I’d heard good things about Ten Forward and its culture, and it’s been on my shortlist of ‘places I’d probably like to work’ for a few years now.
I’m excited to be moving into a consulting role for a number of reasons, but one of the most compelling is the opportunity to work on a wide variety of products for clients in varied industries.”
What are you looking forward to learning or doing in your new position?
“I’m mostly looking forward to getting back to doing native iOS development. I don’t know if someone can have one true programming passion, but that ecosystem is where I started.
I’m also pumped to learn Rails eventually, so hopefully I can get around to that at some point. And what’s most important to me is knowing that I’m coming into an environment where I can have that flexibility.”
I need to congratulate you and your wife on your recent marriage! Mind sharing your funny story about your dog and the ceremony?
“Due to COVID-19, we decided to have a small, backyard wedding. At the end of the ceremony, after we both said, ‘I do’, we looked around for (our dog) and spotted her a few feet away doing her own doo-doo in the backyard.”
She laughed.
“It was very cute though. She had her bow tie on and was smiling. She was very proud of herself.”
You studied law & society and politics in college. What brought you to programming?
“Honestly, I found more joy in programming. There’s potential in politics to affect great change, but at the time I graduated from school, I was personally exhausted from what I considered to be a series of political losses, and I couldn't envision going into that for a career. I don’t really experience that same level of emotional investment in coding.
A more fun version of this story is that once upon a time in college, someone in my co-op spilled a glass of chocolate milk on my old Dell laptop, frying the hard drive. I ended up buying a Mac, but also kept the Dell to tinker with it. I replaced the hard drive myself and installed Ubuntu on it. That experience was so fun that I went back to school after graduation to learn how to code.”
What two people - fictional or real - would you pick to describe yourself, and why?
“As far as inspiration in life, Dana Scully. Growing up, I was a huge X-Files fan. I just liked her foil to Mulder’s wide-eyed ‘anything is possible’, and she’s the skeptic. I definitely am skeptical myself, and more of a realist.
"For my second choice, I’m setting a lower bar for myself: Ron Swanson [from Parks & Recreation]. I love the outdoors, Scotch, and keeping things simple. While my office worker-by-day, musician-by-night lifestyle is not really a secret, I try to embody the essence of Duke Silver every time I grace the stage.”
Fill in the blanks: "If I could only __ one __ for the rest of my life, it would be __."
“If I could only play one video game franchise, it would be Zelda.
“Those are my favorite. I’m sure there are better games out there these days, but I don’t spend a ton of time gaming so I don’t really know what I’m missing out on. I’m mildly embarrassed to admit that I teared up during the intro sequence of Breath of the Wild. Nostalgia is powerful!”
Favorite board game or video game, TV show or movie, band or musician, emoji.
Board game: “I’m a bit of a sadist; I like to beat people at Monopoly.”
TV Show: “I have so many past favorites, but right now it’s gotta be Killing Eve.”
Band or musician: “As a musician, it’s impossible to choose a favorite, but I’m a very big fan of Brittany Howard’s recent stuff. I just love her and her music.”
Emoji: 🍾
Star Trek or Star Wars?
“Star Trek.
I appreciate that at its core, Star Trek is a show about morality. As someone who majored in political theory, that’s very appealing to me. I also love the [The Next Generation]-era jumpsuit uniforms. They’re super slick and I’m not sure why humanity hasn’t yet attained that level of #fashiongoals.”