Brian Kushner

Background

About Brian Kushner

I am originally from Long Island, New York, and remember working in our family-owned Pet Store from a young age. I particularly enjoyed taking care of the animals and running the cash register. Because of this, I remember my parents taking me out of school for a week on vacation and asking the teacher what I could work on, only to be told I was already ahead and to enjoy the vacation. Fast forward, I was working as a point-of-sale installation technician and the company I worked for was working on an integration to a major client. They were no longer going to accept paper vouchers and in turn, needed to be able to activate tickets for its customers. What’s funny was that I was in school taking a C# class and decided that it would be the best language to write the integration and bridge the gap of the current language. Not only was I able to complete the integration, but I also found an error in the test case. This was the first opportunity that I had as a software developer and was also able to show my ability to pick up a new language and see a project to completion. Later in my career, I worked for a company as a Java Developer and was able to propose developing an internal tool that would not only increase the speed of onboarding new merchants to the platform but also reduce the chance of error due to pre-built scripts being used to generate the configurations needed. This resulted in me being encouraged to apply for a team lead role that was opening on a different team. Recognizing gaps and the needs of the team, I was able to reduce the interruptions and context switching by acting as a firewall for the team as well as removing the unnecessary attendance in meetings that were occurring. I also put processes in place to reduce the last-minute Friday afternoon fires. The team culture increased as did their productivity. It was great seeing this progression and the impact I was making. An opportunity opened and I was able to apply and get promoted to being an Engineering Manager. It was great to be able to further advocate for my team. When I look back at my journey to where I am now, I can say that it’s been amazing, and I’ve grown so much professionally and personally. I’ve been able to successfully complete my MBA while still working and can now say that I have managed up to two different teams of developers that had sub-teams within them. I’ve also been able to build partnerships with various teams inside and outside of the companies to help projects be successful.