The Amazing Women of DockYard’s Product Development

DockYard is a digital product development consultancy that offers full-service, full stack strategy, design, and engineering. Beyond that, it is a unique company that focuses heavily on creating a safe, open environment that values inclusion and diversity. They also have a completely remote team, which presents a number of benefits, and considerations for its employees. Women Who Code was lucky enough to sit down with six of the incredible DockYarders that help this company to build and deploy innovative products, and find out what life is like working at DockYard.

• Leigh Brock — Project Manager

• Marisa Campbell — QA

• Monica Wheeler  — UXD

• Sarah Canieso — Front End Engineer

• Aimee Boustani — Back End Engineer

• Jacquelyn Halpern — Product Designer

Leigh Brock, Senior Project Manager, DockYard
Leigh began her career in journalism nearly ten years ago, but quickly moved to another path and started working in project management after finding a project she was producing also needed a project manager (a role she ended up enjoying more than her original position!) Leigh has since focused her career around the Agile methodology as a Scrum Master, Product Owner and Kanban enthusiast. 

Marissa Campbell, SQA Engineer, DockYard
Marissa has been a quality assurance engineer for eleven years. She first fell in love with software testing while getting her degree in CIS. She ended up at DockYard because she was looking specifically for agencies that had remote work options. 

Monica Wheeler, Senior UX Developer, DockYard

Monica is a Senior UX Developer based out of Minneapolis, as well as the mother of an energetic and hilarious two year old boy. She started her career working in various customer service positions, but about 5 years ago she transitioned into development.  

Monica then spent 3 years working in Front End, before taking a 20-week, full immersion full stack development course. When she graduated she found DockYard and was attracted to them because they were uniquely positioned to give her an opportunity to work heavily with HTML and CSS. 

Sarah Canieso, Senior Software Engineer, DockYard

Sarah is a Boston based Senior Software Engineer that focuses heavily on Ember and Rails. She found her way to DockYard because the last company she worked for contracted with them. She has been working as an engineer for 8 years now and while for most of that time her primary focus was front end she now works full stack. 

Aimee Boustani, Software Engineer, DockYard
Aimee started her career by obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in Digital Media from UCF in 2009. At the time she thought that she was going to be a web designer; however, she then got a job at a company that worked with Ruby on Rails and that sucked her into a fascination with back end engineering. 

Jacquelyn Halpern, Product Designer, DockYard
Jacquelyn has been drawing and designing since she was five. She originally wanted to be an architect because she enjoyed how things worked. She studied visual communication and learned about design thinking and how to apply it to any form of design. 

Whether focused on branding, website, product, digital, or physical she always takes a human-centered approach. She eventually transitioned into product design and she loves how the process is being used to help people.

What are your insights about the best way of getting a product across the finish line?

Leigh

From a project management perspective, the most exciting thing is a new project. DockYard is a small company, so we have very small teams. That means that when we are working with a client on a problem, we are able to draw on the core expertise of each person. Small teams can also move very quickly. We use an agile methodology that mostly focuses on iterative development and feedback loops.

Jacquelyn

Design starts with the discovery phase. What problem are you trying to solve and what value is it bringing? Working with stakeholders to host workshops and ideation sessions. Identifying key features and areas of the product. Developing a research plan and gathering groups of users you will interview and use to test the product. Here’s the problem we discovered and here are the people. Let’s see if the assumptions we come up with are correct. Sometimes the assumptions are spot on and sometimes they are not. 

 

In the end, you can have wireframes and prototypes. You will coordinate directly with stakeholders, product owners, and project managers. Eventually connecting with Engineering to identify the MVP (minimum viable product) and do estimation for the work and sprint planning. 

 

High fidelity mockups and high fidelity prototyping and working with User experience, design, UI, and infrastructure to make sure everything is designed appropriately for users. For prototypes, we use Sketch and inVision to house the prototypes. InVision is used for testing as well. After this is complete you are testing the actual product. 

 

Design is involved from the discovery phase to the end with Design QA where the product is being tested.

Monica
Working with the Design team usually is part of my role before it gets to development. I like to sit in on meetings to get a feel for what the client is thinking and to provide input to make things more usable and accessible. When a new feature kicks off, I like to review designs with the design team before coding. Along the way, there is a collaboration with the design and engineering team to ensure that the work we complete is something that is feasible. Finally, we have a review meeting to make sure that the application is functioning as expected, is accessible, and is polished.

Sarah

My favorite part of working at DockYard is how well we all work together. In my role, I get to learn about the motivations of the customer alongside the team, and I also work closely with the SQA to make sure that Marisa is in the loop with any requirements and has the best info on how our products will be used.

Marisa
As a software quality engineer, my role is to ensure the quality of what we produce. My function usually comes in at the end, but I try to be a fly on the wall throughout the work to make sure that I understand what the user and the client want, and that helps me to design a great Q&A. When I evaluate the product I don’t just test it, but I also try it out, while being aware of any issues the client might experience. Developing good test cases and test plans require me to be really collaborative with the team and ask tons of questions, and I usually run both manual and automated testing.

Aimee

Often my role begins by working with the Project Manager to determine if feature requests are possible and dividing that work into requirements.. On the backend, we start with the types of data models we have for the project. Then we set up a database and start writing models and an API. Throughout all of this, we are continually testing to try and get everything as polished as possible before sending it to  QA. Then we have to work closely with QA to make sure everything is buttoned up. 

How do you generally handle communication during this process? 

Leigh
We use Slack a lot, and frequently have stand ups, including a company stand up every Friday. We try to be constantly in communication, even if it’s just with your team. One of the advantages is that it can be hard to have conversations that stretch beyond your group. In a normal office colocation may seem easier, but think of all the times you can’t find a meeting room or one person’s schedule doesn’t allow for the conversation to even start.  For us, everything we say is written on a wall that can be referenced later, keeping everyone on the same page.

Sarah

That’s something I’ve had to adapt to. This is my first remote job and I find that it is important to be super communicative. Being introverted, it’s easy to focus on listening, but when you’re on a remote team, your ideas can get lost, and with one on one DM’s it’s easy to lose context. A pro tip that I’ve learned is to try to communicate, as much as possible, in channels that others can access so they can get the benefit of what is said. You also have to be mindful of new team members and make them feel welcome. It’s easy to see a list of names of people on a team and think that they already know one another. I like to send a nice gif when someone joins a team as a small way of making them feel welcome.

Marisa

I like that we use video chats so that we can really get to know other people’s body language and make eye contact. Even though we may physically be hundreds of miles apart we are still close and have a great repore.

Aimee

A lot of the clients that we work with prefer video chat instead of  Slack for decision making conversations. It’s good to have both skills; writing, and being able to speak about something verbally. You also have to be able to navigate politics with your clients. Sometimes our job is to listen and just chime in with answers to technical questions. 

What is a pro tip for getting a product successfully completed?

Leigh
I find that it’s important to have a sense of humor and to understand that not everything will work perfectly the first time. You also have to be able to empower other people on the team and give them the tools and the space that they need to help others. That’s a lot of my role, just being empathetic and putting people first.

Marisa

For me, it’s being nosy, whether I am remote or in the office. The best way to do QA is to read all of the emails, read all of the messages, and be involved in everything as much as possible so that I always know what’s going on. Another pro tip is to get comfortable talking to everyone. Forming relationships with the people you work with is really important. 

Aimee

Ask for help. And it’s easier to ask for help when you feel you are among friends. We all feel like we know one another really well and we’re always in communication. No matter what your role is, or how long you’ve been in your career, you should always ask for help. It’s a personal preference whether you do this in private or in public. Sometimes I  may be embarrassed, so I just DM the question. But if it’s in the greater interests of the group, then I try to ask the question publicly. It’s important to make it okay for other people to ask questions.

Sarah

One pro tip I have for being an engineer is to just go for it. I went to school and got a degree in design. My love of HTML is actually from Geocities. I always liked that kind of thing and didn’t know how to make it a career, but it evolved this way because I just kept stumbling towards it. If you think you’ll be interested in something then just go for it.

Jacquelyn
Be confident in what you’re doing and don’t back down. Design is research-based so you will always have data to back up your decision. Tune into yourself and tune into reading people. If you listen and something doesn’t feel right even if the pay is great do not ignore your feelings. 

What are some of the biggest challenges that you have faced in your career? 

Leigh
Often there is a knowledge gap between what engineers know and what has to be communicated to a client, in a non-technical way. I have found that being able to bridge that gap can be difficult, but critical for a project manager. Plus, you do start to learn a few things!

Sarah
A big challenge is imposter syndrome, especially in this industry and at a company where the caliber of talent is really high. I have to be able to think and believe that ‘I can do that too.` So getting over that has been a big challenge. Luckily, everyone here is nice which makes that much easier.

Marisa

I was the first QA we hired here at DockYard and one of the biggest challenges was stepping into a very agile environment. When I started here,I tried to develop an implementation process; as a QA you want everything running perfectly. But when you are tasked with being an agile QA you have to be flexible, worrying about the client's needs, as well as the team's needs and keeping up with their velocity. 

Aimee
I’d like to echo what Sarah said about imposter syndrome. The nature of programming is failing a bunch of times before figuring something out. That can be very taxing emotionally, something that often goes in waves for me. Sometimes I feel like I have a good idea about how to figure something out and then I hit a roadblock and I feel terrible. Imposter syndrome is real. 

Monica 

As a UX developer, I work in HTML and CSS exclusively. One of the challenges this presents to me is that I don’t always feel like this role is recognized as critical in the industry when it really is so valuable standing on its own. My team and I work in the front of the front-end and with that comes all of the intricacies like semantic, well-documented code, accessibility, usability, and cross-discipline collaboration to create the most usable products in the industry. This role can be a hard-sell to other companies outside of DockYard. That certainly is a challenge in my role. 

What has been your experience as a woman in the tech industry?

Leigh
Generally speaking, my experience is finding more women in project management, but I am predominantly working with men. There are certainly times where this can be difficult, but I’ve found it far less difficult in a remote environment which was a pleasant surprise. 

Marisa 
My journey to becoming a QA here at DockYard has been more female-dominated. However, I am the only female QA here, which isn’t comfortable. I’ve had to learn how to earn respect while still building rapport with the people I work with. Luckily, it hasn’t been that hard here because of the collaborative environment. It feels more relaxed here, and the diversity is really fair. But one thing I’ve learned on my journey is that if you want to be taken seriously you have to take yourself seriously.

Monica 
I started my professional journey because of my sister. She is a client-side engineer that has been working in the industry for 10 years. When I was looking to change my career she mentored me for 6 months before I got my first job, and that mentorship still has an influence on who I am as a core developer. I give talks at my old school, and take on mentoring any chance I get. Having a woman who was also my sister mentor me really helped. So while I never really felt a barrier, sometimes being the only woman on a team was hard. That’s why having her at my side has been so impactful. 

Aimee 

The short answer is that yes, it’s been hard. I’ve been the only woman engineer at companies before and I’ve had a lot of bad experiences, but all of that has led me here and I am super happy to be working with such a diverse group. We also have a diversity and inclusion team here, and this is the first company where I have seen that. I’m here because of the experiences that I’ve had, and through them, I’ve learned to ask more questions in interviews or to listen to my gut where in the past I might have ignored that. At this point, I am 10 years in and I’m just not messing with that anymore. 

Sarah 

I have definitely noticed myself as the only woman on an engineering stand up. And sometimes I am less likely to speak up during those situations. I don’t know if that’s just because I am shy though, or if it is because I am a woman. It’s something that’s hard to quantify. 

Marisa 

I’ve worked at a lot of companies that weren’t receptive to a QA Team. It can be hard working in that kind of a toxic environment. But at DockYard I don’t feel that. I actually asked them during my interview if they were open to a QA Team and they were really receptive to it.

DockYard’s partnership with WWCode began in 2019 with the goal of promoting inclusivity and championing women in the tech community.  At DockYard, we are not just designers, engineers, writers, and strategists. We are also musicians, travelers, film buffs, and cooks, among many other things. Each of us brings a different perspective that translates to our craft and overall growth as a company. We respect and reward each other for that. Interested applicants can apply here!