Brian is a Software Engineer at SEP.  He has been with SEP since the summer of 2000.  The is a day in his life....

"The day officially starts some time between 7:30 and 9:15, depending on what I have to do, and whether or not I had a hard time waking up in the morning. It always starts with filling my water cup and maybe grabbing a pop tart out of the vending machine.  From that, it's time to sort some e-mail and plan the day's events. Currently I meet with a client every Friday as an ongoing part of our project, so shortly after 9am when he shows up we gather in a conference room to go over the work of the week and discuss changes, bugs, trial cases, and such.  When he's not there, we spend most of our time writing code or designing (depending on the development cycle). 

Lunch is normally a quick run to grab some to-go food and then use a free conference room to play cards for a while.  It's not all eating out.  Most people either bring in a cooler or toss some Tupperware in the fridge for lunch (we've got a decent kitchen). 

Through out the day someone might pop by and ask a quick question, or I might go to get one of my own answered.  It's a way of backing away, stretching legs, telling a few jokes, and getting another opinion on whatever problem is plaguing you at the time. A few times a month I'll do some maintenance on the Intranet; move files, update some software, or install another Perl package.  Once a week, I spend a about an hour in an SEP Academy class on Object Oriented Design.  After work, network games are a decent way to unwind (there's no satisfaction like railing your manager, even if he is a nice guy).  A few of the engineers play a pickup game of Basketball if the weather's good, Foosball, or Air hockey.

What's the best part about SEP?  I get to make decisions that affect my work and matter.  I create, not just implement. "

"Brian J Ball" (bjball@sep.com)
Send resumes to: recruiting@sep.com