Mike Long
Product Designer
What did you learn in your first year?
In my first year I learned that that ThoughtWorks will go to any length to help clients succeed. My first year at ThoughtWorks was spent in Dallas, TX at a major airline. At first, I lived a mere 3 hours south of Dallas in Austin. It was too far to drive twice a week, so I flew to work Monday morning and flew home Friday afternoon. It was only a thirty minute flight! At the time I felt like I had the most swag commute of any of my friends. Most of my colleagues on the project in Dallas were from Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta. It wasn't long before I earned my wings when I moved to Seattle and flew 4 hours each way to Dallas, twice a week! I would travel anywhere and at any time to work with a ThoughtWorks team.
Why did you join ThoughtWorks?
I joined ThoughtWorks so I could create great products and make my own little dent in the universe. I recently worked with a bank to create a mobile app used by millions of bank customers every day. And now that I work with the Studios product group within ThoughtWorks, there are tens of thousands of people who use our tools every day to increase their collaboration and improve their ability to continuously and reliably deliver excellent software to their customers.
About me
I love quotes from 20th century socio-cultural psychologists. For example, consider this one from the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky: "Human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them." Just replace "children" with "designers" and then imagine a place where creativity, continuous knowledge transfer, and transparency abound. I joined ThoughtWorks in the Fall of 2009 and I have not looked back since. I am surrounded by the most thoughtful, creative, and intelligent human beings I have ever met. I truly have grown into the intellectual life of the ThoughtWorkers around me.