Making Connections with Caleb Krivoshein
One of the more under-the-radar profiles at VitalStorm is app developer Caleb Krivoshein. Usually found intensely focused on his computer, Caleb keeps busy creating essential programs for the company. In addition to his daily work managing applications and improving department communications, he can be found helping employees with all manner of computer issues. One of the few team members to have direct contact with everyone on staff, Caleb’s friendly and accessible demeaner helps put those with frustrating tech problems at ease. The computer guru and video game enthusiast also has a sly sense of humor that often surfaces when least expected. We caught up with Caleb during a rare free moment to ask him some questions about his job and what projects he is currently excited about.
Can you talk a bit about your job as Web Application Developer at VitalStorm? What is a typical day for you?
As an app developer, the actual tasks I do vary a lot from day to day. Some days I’m doing research on hot new programing methods and tools. Other days I’m monitoring the performance of the live server. Sometimes I even actually write code. From an outside perspective, however, I’m sure it all looks pretty boring. But I really enjoy the diversity.
You just celebrated your two-year anniversary with the company. How has your role evolved since starting here?
My role has basically scaled with the main app I develop, Vital Storm’s Metrics. When I started two years ago, Metrics did not do much other than import external data for reporting. Now Metrics handles a number of Vital Storm’s operations directly. While the job itself hasn’t changed much, the scope has quite a bit.
Your role is one of the few that allows interaction with every department. Are there any challenges that stand out in juggling so many different tech needs?
It’s really isn’t a challenge, but one of the most satisfying parts of my job are when I am able to connect or synchronize departments in ways that were not obvious. A good example of this is how our clients have both a client relationship manager, and a primary campaign manager. Before, in order to know who the primary campaign manager or client relationship manager was, you would have to ask someone in those departments. Now, Metrics has those roles mapped to each client and account so that it is easy to look up at any time. It allows for both departments to be more fluid in balancing the work load on each manager without adding the extra work of re-routing communication.
What are some of the new programs that you are currently working on?
I’ve got a ton of things lined up to work on. We just launch our Display Campaign Reports and Social Local Reports, so I know I will be refining those for a while. I’m also working on streamlining the way we check for service area conflicts. In the near future, I plan to start working on getting Metrics to provide structed data on our client’s websites, which would help with SEO. Lastly, I’m always looking to do small quality of life updates for Metrics, like the new custom report date range “Day Before Yesterday” I just added today.
Can you describe a program or application that you have created in the last couple of years that you are most proud of?
I would say the module I’m most proud of so far is the Lead Qualification application. It was a major update that let us manage how calls are qualified in a much more natural way. It involves logic that automatically picks calls to qualify based of the needs of our clients, a web interface that lets the lead qualifiers do their job quickly and efficiently, and special reporting tools to let us identify issues that range in scope from call backlogs, to lead qualifier performance, and even client concerns.
What do you feel you personally bring to the company culture at VitalStorm?
I think my most unique perspective, and one thing I think about all the time, is scale. My last job revolved around warehouse management software, and it taught me about how to best scale a process or task. Although it’s an entirely different industry, here at VitalStorm, our job is also to manage how to scale things in a round-about way (i.e. scale up business for our clients). I think anyone here that’s been in a planning meeting with me here has heard me say: “This seems fine for now, but what’s it going to be like it when it doubles?”
Interested in learning more about what Caleb and the VitalStorm team can do for your company? Call us today at 877-311-5695 to find out more about our marketing solutions for the home services industry.