I have a whole pile of great memories/stories of working at Speakeasy. Many occurred during office hours at the office, some occurred after office hours at the office and many occurred outside the office. A lot of companies tout culture as important; they preach about celebrating and embracing diversity, yada yada yada. Few actually pull it off, but Speakeasy did. I learned a ton, made some great friends and was exposed to all sorts of interesting technical puzzles.

The lessons I learned in my 8.5 years at Speakeasy are countless and priceless. I learned tech skills including how to write perl scripts, shell scripts, HTML, PHP, SQL, networking and the OSI stack, API development and the strengths and weaknesses of various development methodologies. I also learned business skills such as how to motivate a team, how to break a problem apart for a team, how to measure and drive progress, how to read a balance sheet, strategies for acquiring equipment (capex vs opex), and the importance of presentation. Finally there are all the ‘other’ skills I learned while at Speakeasy, like how to play poker and craps, ask for forgiveness rather than permission, or how to tell if she’s worth your time (thanks Tim Rounds, I dodged a few bullets thanks to your advice!).

I am thankful for my time at Speakeasy. I am thankful for everyone who helped me and believed in me along the way. I hope to work with pretty much all of you again at some point in the future!