Brady Trudeau
Job Title: Software Developer
We’re excited to feature Brady in our May Employee Spotlight!
Years at Capitol Lien: ~4
- What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career? The two biggest lessons I’ve learned are 1. Build systems that can grow, not just systems that work. 2. Measure twice, build once.
- Share a professional success story that you’re proud of. After discovering that the dreaded “Oops” errors were caused by dropped network requests within our federated architecture, we quickly rebuilt all of Connect to utilize a monolithic architecture which resolved the issue.
- How do you think your role helped shape your team’s culture? I try to tackle tasks as fearlessly as possible, no matter how daunting they seem, which I like to think has helped shape others to approach difficult tasks in the same way.
- What do you love most about your job and why? I absolutely love the team that we have here. Mandy and Ben are incredible managers who push me to be the best version of myself. Tyler and Aaron are brilliant and they inspire me to think outside the box every single day. The rest of the CL team is so kind and always has great ideas for us to implement! Outside of the team here, I just really love working in tech. I get paid to solve problems, which is a dream come true.
- What techniques do you use to stay organized and productive? I base my whole day around our Jira board and my Notes app. Without those two things, I would be a mess haha.
- What do you love to do in your free time? My favorite thing to do is hang out with my wife and our beautiful baby girl, Ember, who is about to turn 1! She keeps me busy and puts a smile on my face each and every day. On top of that- I’ve been playing music in various bands for years, so that’s typically how I spend my weekend nights.
- What is a dream that you want to make come true one day? At this point, I just want to experience the joys of being a dad and to keep growing as a software developer. I had an unorthodox way of getting to where I am today, working as a full-time touring musician for years, then finding a passion for software. Becoming a dad, having the opportunity to find the passion for software development, and having been able to tour the world for years before is all I could ever wish for in a million lifetimes.
- What is your greatest accomplishment? Becoming a dad, hands down.
- What’s a cause that you are passionate about? Anything that helps those who are underprivileged. I’ve been lucky enough to see success in my dev career and music career, but not all people are given the opportunity to find this kind of success. Anything that helps these individuals have the chance to find some level of success is greatly important to me.
- What is one thing you can’t live without? My family/friends. Everything in my life is replaceable other than the people I have around me. They all mean so much to me and I would do anything for each and every one of them.
- If you could travel anywhere, where would you go and why? I had the opportunity to tour Japan a few times and I would absolutely love to go back. Definitely the most incredible place I’ve ever been.
- What’s something most people don’t know about you? I’ve been a pretty obnoxiously loud and passionate Vikings/NFL fan for most of my life, but something most people don’t know about me is I’m actually a much bigger Timberwolves/NBA fan. I’ve never had many friends who were into basketball, so I’ve quietly let the Timberwolves break my heart year after year (until recently) for ages.
- What is your favorite quote? I’ve always loved a good story about adversity, so I’m naturally drawn to the quote “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” With that being said, I just read this one recently and thought it was hilarious, so I’ll use this one: “When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into life’s eyes and demand oranges.”
- What is your favorite band or genre of music? Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental stuff while I work (Plini, Animals As Leaders, Tycho, etc). That being said, I typically listen to older pop/rock/punk music when I’m not working.
- Do you have any pets? Yes! Two dogs, Lucas (Border/Aussie) and Leo (Aussie/German Shepherd/Alien)