From the Source: Lessons in Reverb Culture with Lydia Tripp
We sat down with Engineering Manager Lydia Tripp, to talk about what it’s like working on the Product & Engineering team at Reverb.
What do you do at Reverb?
I manage the dev team responsible for all things related to financial transactions.
What’s your preferred gender pronoun?
She/her
Tell us about Reverb’s platform: What problem is it solving, why is it interesting, and why do customers find it useful?
Reverb is a website and app where anyone can buy and sell new or used musical instruments. Millions of people choose to use Reverb over other sites because everything we create — from tech tools to new services — is built with the musical instrument industry in mind.
From a tech perspective, it’s exciting and interesting to work on a product that has such a passionate fanbase. Our community uses the site and app daily, so we’re constantly getting feedback directly from our audience.
I also love working on a product that so many of my music-loving team members use themselves — our team is genuinely interested in and excited about the work we’re doing. Even those who aren’t musicians believe in our mission to make the world more musical by making it easy for anyone to access or sell musical instruments.
What do you love about working on the Product & Engineering team at Reverb?
Every day, I get the opportunity to collaborate across teams. Among other departments, my team works closely with our customer engagement team. Our customer engagement team is full of rock stars — literally. Customers can call or message our customer engagement team and talk to a musician. It’s a huge part of what makes Reverb different. It’s rewarding to work on solutions that not only positively impact the customers calling and chatting into Reverb, but also that help our customer engagement reps do their jobs better.
Additionally, we have a very robust test suite: We’re deploying multiple times per day — even per hour — with no downtime.
Reverb is under the Etsy umbrella, but yet is still a small enough company where individual employees can make an impact on the product. Can you talk to us about the size and feel of Reverb with this in mind? What kind of impact do you feel like you’re able to make here?
Working at Reverb is the best of both worlds. We’re owned by one of the most respected names in eCommerce. At the same time, Reverb is small enough that you recognize everyone in the building and can form relationships with lots of different people across different departments. My team gets to see the impact of our work regularly. Recently, we created a solution for our accounting department that helped them finish their month-end reports nearly two days sooner. Seeing the impact of our projects on not only the business, but also our team members is incredibly rewarding.
Work-life balance is something that companies love to preach, but often come up short on practicing. Can you speak to the work-life balance at Reverb and why that’s important for you as both a professional and a person outside of work?
When you work on a team full of musicians, work/life balance is built into the culture since employees might need to leave early to record an album or take a week off to tour in Japan. That work/life balance translates to all employees, whether you’re a parent like me or have other passions outside of work.
Recently, my kid was sick and I needed to stay home for a few days. I knew that I could do that because:
- We’ve created a culture of empowerment. Expectations are laid out clearly in advance and projects are organized and communicated in a way that team members feel empowered to make decisions, even if their manager is out of the office.
- Additionally, we ensure that no single person is responsible for any one single project. Team members pair on new tasks and everyone understands how to do a little bit of everything so that if one person is out sick or on vacation, someone else can pick up the task for them.
From an engineering perspective, why were you attracted to Reverb? Why should others feel compelled to come and work alongside you?
We’re working to build a platform for all music makers, everywhere — no matter their level, instrument of choice, background, or genre — and to create that, we have to build teams with diverse backgrounds. We don’t compromise on tech skills when it comes to the people we’re looking to hire, but we are looking for people who bring different and interesting perspectives to the table. That was attractive to me — I knew that I could bring my authentic self to the Reverb office. If you’re a guitar player, bring your guitar to work. If you love a really cheesy band, don’t be afraid to talk about it. If you have a question about music gear or about a technical problem you’re having, you can ask and get a judgment-free answer. During the interview process, I could tell that the team would not only allow me to be myself at the office, but also would celebrate the unique traits I bring to the table.
What’s the most interesting challenge, technically, about the tech or product work you do?
Working within a two-sided eCommerce marketplace is interesting and challenging from a tech perspective. Often, our team has three audiences to keep in mind: the buyer, the seller, and internally, our customer engagement team. We work on solutions that not only ensure that transactions feel seamless from the perspective of the buyer and the seller but also that help our Customer Engagement reps do their jobs better. As an example: If you’re a musician and you buy a guitar from one Reverb shop, an amplifier from another seller, and an effects pedal from a third retailer, your checkout experience will feel streamlined thanks to the work that our team does.
Interested in working with Lydia or on the Product & Engineering team? Apply here.
