Meeting… Shay Culpepper, Software Engineer at The New York Times
“Meeting…” is an ongoing series from NYT Open that features New York Times employees from different corners of the company.
What is your name?
Shay Culpepper
What are your pronouns?
She/Her
What is your job?
Software Engineer
What does that mean?
I work on tracking and analytics for our home screen, both on our website and our mobile apps. Right now, I’m building a dashboard so the newsroom can monitor click-through rates on the home screen.
How long have you been at The Times?
Almost a year and half.
Most Times employees are working remotely right now. Where are you working from these days?
I’m working from a little makeshift desk next to my bed from my apartment in Morningside Heights, a neighborhood in Manhattan. It’s one of those cheap IKEA desks. I took two of the legs off and it rests on my windowsill.
How do you start your day?
I’m a Texan, so the most important thing I do every morning is make a giant glass of iced tea. It is just Lipton tea over ice and it is delicious. The next most important thing I do is pick out a dress and loud earrings for the day.
Once I’m ready to work, I look over the paper planner that I use to keep meeting notes, a to-do list and most importantly: my daily wins. I like to check in the morning to make sure I have written down something I’m proud of from the day before. Next, I look over the to-do list items that haven’t been checked off yet. Then I check my google calendar for what meetings I have for the day. The most important step is then planning what tasks I will complete in specific blocks of time (Thank you to my colleague Carolyn Price for this tip).
What is something you’ve worked on recently?
Lately my team, Core Product Data, has been working with the data visualization team to rethink how we build dashboards for the newsroom. We have been sketching out the architecture for a completely new platform that would allow teams to quickly and easily build new dashboards. I find creating projects from the ground up fun because you end up getting to do a lot of research.
Tell us about a project you’ve worked on at The Times that you’re especially proud of.
This isn’t part of my core job responsibilities, but I’m very proud of the work I have done through Women in Tech as part of the leadership committee. Women in Tech is an internal task force at The Times that works to improve diversity and equity in recruiting, retainment and advancement.
My teammate Shelly Seroussi and I launched a buddy program for new employees in technology. We match new employees with veteran staffers to help them network across the organization and acclimate to Times culture. The buddies meet regularly for the first three months the new hire is on staff.
What was your first job?
I served fried chicken at a place called Chicken Express. I had access to so much fried okra. I love okra in all of its forms, but fried is truly the best.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
All three of my brothers are engineers, my mom is an IT administrator and my dad is a scrum master. We all got into tech by very different paths, and it is fun to share tech as a family. I like to think of us as “The Developeppers,” but that name sadly hasn’t caught on.
What is your secret to career success?
Beyond luck, privilege and working hard, I like to think I owe most of my success to radically being myself and opening space for others to be their full selves. This means being upfront and honest about my weaknesses, and it has meant being upfront about my mental health. The fact that I’m bipolar doesn’t come up too often, but I have found that being willing to talk about it breaks down barriers. I have had several colleagues open up to me about their own journeys as a result. Being upfront also means owning mistakes and apologizing: I made some bad calls during a big project last year, which made the project stressful for my entire team. I had to own that, apologize and spend time doing the work to be better during future projects.
I also like to open up spaces for one-on-one communication with my teammates. Sometimes that’s coffee, sometimes that’s small silly Slack conversations and sometimes it is virtual hang outs after work. Being intentional about developing relationships helps you build trust and your work will be better for it.
I should also note that a lot of this isn’t possible without taking care of myself. While companies might offer support healthcare and paid time off, they can’t make me take those days off and they can’t make me go to the doctor. I have to take care of myself and my mental health. No one can do that for me.
What is your superpower?
I can whip up very silly presentations in a bind.
What are you inspired by?
Times journalism and my colleagues keep me going every day. I’m constantly pinching myself. I count myself very lucky to be part of an organization that produces such excellent journalism.
Name one thing you’re excited about right now.
I’m pursuing a master’s degree in Data Analysis and Visualization at The Graduate Center, which is part of City University of New York. Next semester, I have a data visualization course that is studio style, meaning there will be lots of critique. I’m excited because there is nothing as helpful as feedback when it comes to visualizations: you need to know if your audience understands your intended message.
What is your best advice for someone starting to work in your field?
For your first job, just try to get your foot in the door somewhere. Working at the big companies can come later; Once you have a couple of years under your belt, a lot opens up for you. Where you worked is less important than what you worked on.
