Jon B.
Q: Who are you? Where are you from?
A: My name is Jonathan, Jon for short, a senior QA engineer here at Modulate. Being in quality assurance means I break things to figure out what needs to be made better, faster, and stronger. I grew up in northeast Connecticut then moved to Boston for college and never left.
Q: What’s your background? What did you do before Modulate?
A: I got a BS in computer science at Wentworth Institute of Technology, during which I interned at a semiconductor capital equipment manufacturing company, and a b2b predictive marketing startup. Before college I also worked for several years in handicap accessibility. After graduating I found myself at a customer research web services company learning web software QA and happily stuck around there for many years.
Q: Why are you joining Modulate?
A: I’m a lifelong gamer and have gotten to see toxicity firsthand an uncountable number of times. The chance to work at an ethics-first tech company that seems staged to truly tackle some of the problems I’ve dealt with was something I couldn’t wait to get involved in. I want to help leave the world a better place than I found it and that ethos resonates through everyone here.
Q: What’s your ideal work environment? Any special strategies you use to stay effective?
A: I’m a proponent of a hybrid environment to go with my hybrid job needs. For a larger project when I need to focus and crush hours of work I would love a personal cave far from the rest of the world- headphones at home help me get close. For a project that I need to chat with coworkers rapidly and iterate I much prefer to be in person and available. Regardless of what else I’m doing I will have my bullet journal close by, some music and good headphones, and probably a pomodoro timer running.
Q: Tell us about something you must have in any culture you join?
A: Respect. I’ve had the opportunity to work in better and much worse environments in regards to personal respect being the expectation, versus only being ‘earned’. Lack of genuine respect between anyone, and worse than that, a lack of respect being ignored or even fostered by management will immediately kill my sense of belonging. Just be excellent to each other!
Q: Who are you outside of work?
A: Chill! I like gaming and anime, rock climbing, and getting out into nature however I can like hiking or kayaking. I am also a Dungeons and Dragons (5th edition) player with a great crew, just hit five years in our campaign. And I’m a serial hobby collector; I always have something new I want to learn more about! Recently it has been lockpicking- it’s like the blacksmith puzzles I loved as a kid, just a bit trickier.
Q: What’s something you’re great at that few people realize?
A: I have great spatial cognition- a fancy way of saying I can tetris more stuff into less space than anyone I’ve met. It can be a blessing when packing for trips or organizing a freezer, or a curse when I have to move all that stuff! I also excel at untangling knots in yarn and was a great shot in olympic air rifle, a sport I would love to get back into someday.
Q: Leave us with a fun tidbit - a favorite joke, a story from your past, an obscure riddle, whatever you like!
A: I can tell you from experience: you light a coworker on fire with an explosion one time and suddenly you’re that crazy guy who blew up a coworker. (He was totally fine, honest!)
