This week, meet and welcome a new addition to the Shotgun team, Software Development Engineer in Test, Jordi Riera.
When did you join the Shotgun team?
I’m a newcomer. I started less than two months ago. The team has been great and welcoming, and it’s a pleasure to be here. Even though I’m new, I feel that I’m included in discussions. It is refreshing.
I joined as a Software Development Engineer in Test on the QA team. I help our engineers with tests, and I test best practices. I interact with everyone from development, to QA, to DevOps and managers. It’s a lot of knowledge to digest!
Where were you at before joining the Shotgun team?
I worked at VFX and Animation companies for almost 10 years. While I started as a lighting artist, I acted mostly as a pipeline TD and software developer. I had the pleasure of working for large companies such as Sony Picture Imageworks, Canada, and MPC, UK as well as smaller studios like AnimationLab, Isreal, and nWave, Belgium.
During this time, I heard about Shotgun without really touching it. That changed in 2015 when I joined RodeoFX, here in Montreal. At RodeoFX, Shotgun is the central tool – everything is connected to Shotgun. After some months, I had been promoted to admin, and became the technical go-to person on the topic for the company, working as a developer but also an advisor and mentor. What a challenge it was! Not only did I need to get up to speed on Shotgun and its API, but also on RodeoFX’s business practices.
How has this experience helped you with your new role on the Shotgun team?
I have an uncommon background: a mix of development and technical project management. I’ve always liked being involved in the entirety of the development lifecycle, from the requirements and design to the coding itself. This broad range allowed me to interact with a lot of great people who shared their knowledge with me, whether it’s developers, producers, managers, coordinators, artists, supervisor, you name it.
What are you currently working on?
I implement a Continuous Integration solution to help our engineers build the best software possible. It aims to test all the code that we produce and ensure what is delivered meets our quality requirements. It may seem strange to some, though I love this kind of “support” position where I get to help others achieve their best.
What’s your favorite Shotgun feature?
I love the Shotgun API. I’ve done so much work with this API from daily data extraction to building reports on the activity or usage, to setting up multiple plug-ins and daemons to have automatic data updates. It’s a great tool and worth investing the time to learn.
Something you wish people knew they could do in Shotgun?
Have a chat with the Shotgun street/support team! They have a bunch of experience with Shotgun and are always happy to share. They are a gold mine for anyone interested in learning more about Shotgun.
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