Life at Aditude: Thomas McGovern

Thomas McGovern describes a typical day in his life working remotely from Congers, NY.

Life at Aditude is a series about the individuals working behind the scenes at Aditude.

Meet the Aditude Team: Can you introduce yourself and describe your role at Aditude? 
Hi, I’m Tommy and I’m a Software Engineer at Aditude.

Day in the Life: What does a typical day look like for you at Aditude? Walk us through your daily responsibilities.
I work with the growth team so a lot of my day varies in terms of tasks, but each day tends to blend together in the same way. Normally I’ll have a list of publisher tasks as well as scheduled planned work. There are also tests and data to check on, so after acclimating in the morning to what requests are new or outstanding I’ll take a look at relevant data and then begin tackling tickets. Sometimes it can be a quick 15-minute coding PR or it can be a more extensive task that will require creating, testing, and reviewing code that can take hours or even days. I also attend the growth team's daily stand-ups for planning both short and long-term work, but on a typical day, I don’t spend more than an hour or two in meetings so I can spend it heads down coding.

Your Journey to Aditude: How did you end up working at Aditude? What inspired you to join the team?
After taking a coding boot camp and going to school for Computer Science, I ended up applying to Aditude in August 2022. It is my first Software Engineering job, so honestly I was excited to get into any aspect of the “real world” application of what I’d been learning for the last few years of my life. I remember in my interviews with Jared, Erik, and Josh (Robins, not to be mistaken with the other 50 Joshes we have) all of them seemed both intelligent, but also had an attitude (no pun intended) that I really got along well with from the get-go.

Favorite Projects: What has been your most exciting or rewarding project at Aditude so far?
It’s definitely hard to say now that I’ve been here for two years. I’ll probably go with a recency bias and say recently we just began testing a long-awaited “Report Ad Button.” I got to work with our amazing designer, Kate, as well as our Data team, and I tend to really enjoy these longer-term, collaborative projects while still being able to have ownership of a large portion of the project.

Challenges & Solutions: What are some common challenges you face in your role, and how do you overcome them?
I think the main two challenges can be 1, getting a large amount of work in a short amount of time, and 2, getting projects or tasks that you simply don’t have any prior knowledge of. For the first point, it’s common that some days we can just feel swamped by work, especially as we start to get closer to the holidays. Lots of requests, some big, some small. Typically the best way to handle this for me is to prioritize, typically from quickest to longest tasks to ensure I’m getting out as much as possible. Also on those “heads down” kind of days I’ll typically convey to the team the expectations they can have from me and get their expectations, prioritizing really does feel like the best way to go. For the second point, there’s no good answer here other than you have to figure it out. There can be several ways. Internal resources like connecting with other team members who have faced similar problems or external resources like public documentation, or just the internet in general can help with stuff the team isn’t familiar with.

Team Collaboration: How does collaboration with other team members affect your work?
I work with everyone on the growth team daily. Whether it’s just the daily stand-up call, or jumping on a private call to jam on some code, it can be several things. I’m also always on Slack so I’m sending plenty of messages every day.

Career Advice: What advice would you give someone looking to pursue a similar career?
This is kind of a tough one for me since I feel like I’m still so new to the space myself. I guess my advice would be to never give up on yourself and commit yourself to working hard. My first few months here at Aditude were super overwhelming for me since it was my first coding gig and I often felt that sense of impostor syndrome where I was questioning my abilities, especially when comparing myself to others.

Tech & Trends: What emerging technologies or trends are you most excited about in the programmatic advertising space?
It’s definitely a buzz word so maybe this will be a pretty boring answer today, but I’ve always been fascinated with AI. There’s just a certain kind of almost scary sense of how limitless it can be. I also know Jared can’t wait to have an AI robot serving him coffee.

Memorable Moments: Share a memorable or funny moment you've had while working at Aditude.
This is an impossible question to answer. There’s been so many trips and laughs shared. Every company trip has been amazing. Even the smaller scale events like the BBQ at Jared’s. I also really enjoyed our little video shoot at Jared’s, which was my first feeling that we were making a big name for ourselves.

Future Goals: Where do you see yourself and Aditude heading in the next few years? Any exciting plans or visions for the future?
The plan is to keep rocking as a software engineer. I love being a part of the growth team and now that we’ve merged with HTL combining ideas from the 2 wrappers to make an improved wrapper and better product offerings it’s really exciting. It will keep us busy! I’m looking forward to growing at Aditude and taking on a more senior-level role with the potential of becoming a mentor in the same way that I’ve been mentored so far.