Perry Sy, a Frontend Engineer at RapidSOS, is our Employee Spotlight of the Week! He speaks about his passion, his love for the work he does here, and about some of the projects he’s working on now.
Q: Why did you want to work for RapidSOS?
A: For me, it was a new challenge because I was previously working for a Fintech company and Fintech culture is quite different. When I came back to New York, I was given the opportunity to work on technology that saves lives, which was quite different from my previous experience. I also really like start-up culture. But, most importantly, the RapidSOS team is very strong. Not just the engineering team, but the Product team, the Marketing team, and the other teams. We all have the same goal here – we’re trying to save lives in a more efficient way. This experience is priceless.
Q: What motivates you?
A: The first thing is that we’re trying to change the 9-1-1 infrastructure to save lives in a more efficient way. This kind of gives you a heroic feeling. Another thing is, my past experience has been in web-development, and now I can use something I like to help someone, which is even better!
Q: How did you find yourself on the engineering team?
A: I was the second front-end engineer on the team. I feel like I was able to get along with my teammates very well, and I was able to handle the workload. Now we have doubled our front-end team to four people, which shows how fast the company is growing.
Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: With RapidSOS Portal I got to start the whole project from scratch. I had to architect the structure and pick the technology that we wanted to use. It was quite open-ended – we did it the way we wanted. The freedom we have as engineers is very useful when it comes to building the best possible technology for our users.
Q: For that reasoning, would you say that RapidLite is the most exciting project you have worked on?
A: Yes, 100%. It has become a very important tool because it is an easy way for any agency to get access to data from the RapidSOS Clearinghouse. The sign-up process only takes a few minutes and the approvals process only a few weeks.
In the past, I worked on the main website and other projects, but now we have a bigger team so I’m 100% focused on RapidSOS Portal.
Q: Can you describe what it is like working on the engineering team?
A: Well there are a lot of tasks and improvements we can make as a front-end team. Recently we added two more talented team members and they can help us speed up the projects we’re working on. We have a lot of technology that we want to expand and improve on.
Q: How has RapidSOS helped you reach your goals?
A: We have the freedom to choose the stack, the technology that we use, and hold that to the community standard. That’s pretty helpful because technology is changing every week and you have to keep updating yourself to know the latest technology. We don’t have a set limit on that — we have the freedom to learn and use new tools.
Q: What are you most looking forward to in the coming months at RapidSOS?
A: First of all, RapidSOS Portal is a successful product. A significant portion of PSAPs nationwide currently use our product, and it is very easy for PSAPs to get access. That’s really meaningful. And, now we can start expanding internationally. Imagine you helped create a product that’s used to help people around the country — and eventually people in Europe and Asia can actually use it too — that’s really meaningful.
Q: What do you like to do in your free time?
A: I like the ocean. I like scuba diving and surfing. I also like to play basketball and hang-out with my friends and family.
Join our mission working on life-saving technology! Our engineering team is hiring for positions in our New York office. Take a look at our current openings.