First things first, who are you?
I’m Cheryl, a software developer on the engineering team here at Rival IQ. I like fried chicken and I like to draw. You’ll hear more about that later on, I imagine.
Cheryl eats the world.
What do you do here?
I am the youngest member of the engineering team, so I’m still picking up everything that makes the Rival IQ product what it is. I started last June, and I’ve been learning bits and pieces of our codebase since then.
What kind of projects do you work on?
It depends on the project and whatever we’re focusing on as a company for that sprint. Right now, for instance, I’m working on reworking some of our current alerts emails for customers (like notable activity for a specific social channel). I like to focus more on the UI (user-interface), front-end aspect of our product.
And what makes you excited to work here?
There’s so much to learn. I definitely learn so much every day and the people I work with are all super nice, and awesome and helpful.
When it’s your turn to order Wednesday lunch, what are you most likely to order and why?
My ideal lunch for all of us is any kind of Asian food, mostly Chinese food because that’s what I was raised on. In my humble opinion, it is the best food in the world. But you know, Thai food is good, too. I love it when we go out for Thai.
How do you use data in your day-to-day?
I started recently running an online shop and associated social media accounts with that for my art. So, I have been analyzing the typical: how many visitors to the page, conversion rate, blah, blah, blah, and it’s been cool to see what data I get and think about what data I would rather get.
On the social channels front, we recently launched Instagram Insights, and it’s been super cool to use that to see when I should be posting. That’s definitely changed how I work, since I’m often posting at 2am: maybe I need to try 8-10am when people are actually awake.
Instagram follower online times.
You talked a little bit about what you like in the product, but do you have a favorite feature?
Instagram Insights! I was a part of the team working on that and it was one of the features that I had the opportunity to be on from beginning to end, if you can really put an end to features like this. But it was a lot of fun to see something that I use so heavily make its appearance in our product.
Do you feel like your own experience using Instagram influenced how the feature works?
Definitely. I feel like I got to scratch my own itch in terms of, “Oh, it would be nice if our product could do this that Instagram analytics doesn’t quite do yet.” I was also able to bring some of the opinions that our customers shared into how we created the feature, which was also really nice.
How do you use social media outside of work?
Like I said, I run an art side project where I draw and I use the stuff I draw to create prints, keychains, etc. I mainly use Twitter and Instagram.
A few amazing examples of Cheryl’s art.
Do you differentiate your channels?
Oh yeah, definitely. Twitter is a different kind of crowd, I think, from Instagram because Instagram is so visually-focused. On Twitter there’s more interaction between me and the people I follow and the people who follow me. There are more words exchanged, which is nice, but it’s also nice to go on Instagram just to see pictures.
Last question: what do you want your legacy at Rival IQ to be?
That gummy bears stay a snack option!
The Rival IQ snack cabinet–check out those gummy bears on the left!
You can find Cheryl’s amazing art at zii-ye.com, and you can reach her on Instagram. Or, look for her amazing feature updates in Rival IQ!
