Meeting Title: Brainforge PM Candidate Screening Interview Date: 2025-08-20 Meeting participants: Danielle Van Pelt, Amber Lin, James H
WEBVTT
1 00:08:02.980 ⇒ 00:08:03.880 Amber Lin: Hi there!
2 00:08:06.230 ⇒ 00:08:07.300 Danielle Van Pelt: for you today?
3 00:08:07.950 ⇒ 00:08:09.070 Amber Lin: How are you?
4 00:08:09.070 ⇒ 00:08:11.640 Danielle Van Pelt: Doing good, doing good, hanging in there.
5 00:08:12.240 ⇒ 00:08:14.010 Amber Lin: Where are you based in?
6 00:08:14.010 ⇒ 00:08:17.370 Danielle Van Pelt: North Carolina, a little bit outside of Raleigh.
7 00:08:17.740 ⇒ 00:08:22.639 Amber Lin: Oh, I have no clue what it is, and I kind of know where North Calora…
8 00:08:22.870 ⇒ 00:08:26.020 Amber Lin: Carolina is, but I don’t know where that city is.
9 00:08:26.020 ⇒ 00:08:32.589 Danielle Van Pelt: All good. It’s, like, in the middle of the city, so, you know, it’s a little, like, 2 hours from the East Coast.
10 00:08:34.039 ⇒ 00:08:35.020 Danielle Van Pelt: Cool.
11 00:08:35.200 ⇒ 00:08:53.389 Amber Lin: So this is just gonna be a first-round screen interview for us to get to know you more, and for you to ask us questions, so we can both see if, this position is a fit. And I can start off with a quick intro about myself, and then we can dive into the questions.
12 00:08:53.620 ⇒ 00:08:54.819 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, sounds good.
13 00:08:54.820 ⇒ 00:09:12.429 Amber Lin: Yeah, so my name is Amber, I joined Brainforge about 5 months ago. I started as a project manager, and right now I’m helping them set up the PMO, look for people to be project managers, and also help run the department.
14 00:09:14.470 ⇒ 00:09:15.669 Danielle Van Pelt: Cool moment.
15 00:09:15.670 ⇒ 00:09:22.740 Amber Lin: I saw the Loom video that you sent in, and I think that’s why we were interested in, meeting you
16 00:09:22.840 ⇒ 00:09:36.679 Amber Lin: online and in person, and then we have a few questions just on your past experiences, and then at the end of the 20 minutes, I think we have some space for you to ask questions as well.
17 00:09:36.900 ⇒ 00:09:38.270 Danielle Van Pelt: Awesome, thank you.
18 00:09:39.060 ⇒ 00:09:45.329 Amber Lin: So I’m just listing… oh, before we start, what are your pronouns? I don’t want to get it wrong.
19 00:09:45.330 ⇒ 00:09:47.209 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, all good. She, her.
20 00:09:47.210 ⇒ 00:09:48.270 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good.
21 00:09:48.270 ⇒ 00:09:49.369 Danielle Van Pelt: Your pronouns as well?
22 00:09:49.440 ⇒ 00:09:51.119 Amber Lin: Is she her?
23 00:09:51.120 ⇒ 00:09:51.910 Danielle Van Pelt: Okay.
24 00:09:51.910 ⇒ 00:09:52.450 Amber Lin: Yeah.
25 00:09:52.610 ⇒ 00:09:55.789 Amber Lin: So, I think starting off…
26 00:09:56.490 ⇒ 00:10:03.580 Amber Lin: If I recall it right, you said… Your motivations was to…
27 00:10:04.410 ⇒ 00:10:07.569 Amber Lin: I’m trying to pull off the loom as well.
28 00:10:09.530 ⇒ 00:10:10.620 Amber Lin: ….
29 00:10:12.610 ⇒ 00:10:14.599 Danielle Van Pelt: I don’t think… was there a motivation question?
30 00:10:14.720 ⇒ 00:10:15.899 Danielle Van Pelt: Let’s see….
31 00:10:16.200 ⇒ 00:10:17.500 Amber Lin: And how could they split?
32 00:10:17.500 ⇒ 00:10:21.130 Danielle Van Pelt: I mean, I can totally… was there one? I think it was… I have my questions right here.
33 00:10:21.130 ⇒ 00:10:30.879 Amber Lin: Oh, I see, they updated the questions. So I think I wanted to see what motivates you in your career, and what you want to do, essentially.
34 00:10:30.880 ⇒ 00:10:35.729 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, all good. So, I guess to take that in two parts, …
35 00:10:36.460 ⇒ 00:10:46.340 Danielle Van Pelt: what motivates me? I feel like I’m very intrinsically motivated, just by, like, I’m really… I want to grow a lot, I guess, and be, like, the best I can be. …
36 00:10:46.340 ⇒ 00:11:03.370 Danielle Van Pelt: Externally, I feel like I’m… it’s very about… it’s very much about those around me. I feel like I’m, like, empowered or… or motivated just by, like, seeing other passionate and smart people, doing things and things of that nature. I feel like that’s why I’ve at least
37 00:11:03.370 ⇒ 00:11:09.289 Danielle Van Pelt: found that I really enjoy my 3 years at 42, just being in a startup environment where people just
38 00:11:09.290 ⇒ 00:11:28.750 Danielle Van Pelt: really were passionate about moving forward on something, and there just wasn’t as much, you know, in a corporate atmosphere, there are different people that are there to, like, just get a paycheck and kind of move by, but I really, you know, was motivated, I guess, by more than that. And then, in addition to that,
39 00:11:28.970 ⇒ 00:11:36.820 Danielle Van Pelt: let’s see… I think impact is pretty important to me from, like, an external side as well. I feel like I’ve…
40 00:11:37.630 ⇒ 00:11:54.820 Danielle Van Pelt: left gap, because I really didn’t want… I was, like, very… I wanted more autonomy as well as, just being able to see direct impact of what I was doing, more so, so that was something as well. Going into, kind of, career goals, the other part of that question.
41 00:11:55.120 ⇒ 00:11:59.609 Danielle Van Pelt: really, I guess it’s focused on, you know, I’ve found…
42 00:12:00.030 ⇒ 00:12:14.659 Danielle Van Pelt: what I guess I’m strong at, and how to best apply it professionally, and I really enjoy, like, PM and, kind of, like, project and program management is where I’ve kind of found that space for myself. I think I really want to
43 00:12:14.730 ⇒ 00:12:27.140 Danielle Van Pelt: grow in that area and continue to get closer to, like, the product, and continue to get, more technical, and I guess, kind of closer with engineers, which is what I’ve kind of done over the past, like, 3 or 4 years.
44 00:12:28.180 ⇒ 00:12:42.790 Danielle Van Pelt: And then I also am really interested in, kind of, I feel like most of my, leadership right now has been very influence-based, I guess, so I’m very interested in also getting, like, that direct
45 00:12:42.790 ⇒ 00:12:52.259 Danielle Van Pelt: management experience, kind of in my future. I’ve, mentored, like, LGBT youth and stuff, so I find, like, that very, I guess.
46 00:12:53.910 ⇒ 00:12:55.940 Danielle Van Pelt: Motivationally…
47 00:12:56.310 ⇒ 00:13:04.470 Danielle Van Pelt: As well as just, it makes me feel good and gives me some purpose for life, and I feel like I could get that same gain from… in a professional sense as well.
48 00:13:04.470 ⇒ 00:13:20.129 Danielle Van Pelt: And then I think kind of the final thing is really just, I’m working towards a lot of certifications to kind of just get, I think, acquire more knowledge, and a lot of more formal, naming of things and things of that nature, so I’m currently working on
49 00:13:20.130 ⇒ 00:13:31.459 Danielle Van Pelt: like, I guess, coursework for, like, to take the PMP and stuff, and then I want to go further than that to kind of continue that commitment. But yeah, that’s kind of where I see myself, so….
50 00:13:31.460 ⇒ 00:13:49.699 Amber Lin: Thank you for that. And I know, since you said you want to progress more in the project management world, do you mean managing bigger, more complex projects, managing more projects under your portfolio, or does that mean setting up an organization, or managing project managers? What exactly is the route you want to take?
51 00:13:49.970 ⇒ 00:13:58.720 Danielle Van Pelt: I think I really… I think I’m open to a little bit more of them. It’s like, I guess, what I’ve found is I…
52 00:13:58.740 ⇒ 00:14:15.300 Danielle Van Pelt: I guess a lot of my strengths are kind of, like, in operational rigor. I feel like I’m just very… intrinsically, I do that for myself, you know, on my day-to-day or week-to-week, you know? And so, you know, I found that, like, I can harness that to empower teams.
53 00:14:15.300 ⇒ 00:14:31.269 Danielle Van Pelt: And so I think that that could, you know, apply to creating things similarly to how I created some frameworks at 42 for a lot of stuff. I think that is a path that I could go. And then I also just really find a lot of,
54 00:14:31.440 ⇒ 00:14:51.430 Danielle Van Pelt: power from, again, that people management aspect, or just that, you know, the social aspect of the project manage… of project managing. So that’s kind of another route to go as well, but very open, I guess, but both those routes are kind of at least where I see myself going.
55 00:14:52.050 ⇒ 00:15:03.350 Amber Lin: I appreciate that. I want to ask some questions about your previous positions. So starting from 42, can you describe briefly what you were hired to do?
56 00:15:04.070 ⇒ 00:15:11.429 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, so, it was a little all over the place. I would say the first thing was really for…
57 00:15:11.430 ⇒ 00:15:36.400 Danielle Van Pelt: just pro… like, it was project management was specifically it. I think it was very ambiguous what I was coming on to do. They… we had worked together previously, as, like, I was a… they were a vendor of a company that I worked at. I managed the project that they came in, they saw interest in me, and that’s kind of how that relationship kind of came about. They were wanting to, I guess, scale up operations, and to kind of get
58 00:15:36.400 ⇒ 00:15:49.039 Danielle Van Pelt: more predictability. That was, like, I guess, like, a key issue in the beginning. And so I was really coming on to kind of spearhead a lot of their onboardings. And I would say that kind of
59 00:15:49.080 ⇒ 00:15:50.330 Danielle Van Pelt: really…
60 00:15:50.560 ⇒ 00:16:09.309 Danielle Van Pelt: shifted over time or something. I got really… I got a lot closer to, I guess, the product team and things of just, like, program delivery and product management and things of that nature, closer to the product, and then just kind of became, like, a bridge or, like, connecting point between engineering
61 00:16:09.310 ⇒ 00:16:12.230 Danielle Van Pelt: Sales and customer success.
62 00:16:12.450 ⇒ 00:16:16.439 Danielle Van Pelt: But yeah, so I think originally, very…
63 00:16:16.840 ⇒ 00:16:28.369 Danielle Van Pelt: just project… any type of project that came on, there was no other project manager at the company or anything like that, so it was mainly just to be an expert in that field and try to help,
64 00:16:29.630 ⇒ 00:16:32.940 Danielle Van Pelt: Just improve the processes that they had started.
65 00:16:32.940 ⇒ 00:16:42.789 Amber Lin: Okay, that sounds very interesting. How big is the PM team right now? I see that they’re currently at 11 to 50 employees. How big is the company? How many PMs are there?
66 00:16:42.790 ⇒ 00:17:06.170 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, so there were 13… there were 14 people there when I got laid off, so, or… and then I think it dropped a little bit after that time, but it was only 14 of us. I managed a 7-person engineering team, and then it was, you know, a little bit of salespeople, a little bit of, customer success. I think overall, like.
67 00:17:06.170 ⇒ 00:17:07.510 Danielle Van Pelt: You know, so…
68 00:17:07.510 ⇒ 00:17:16.470 Danielle Van Pelt: And I interacted with everyone at the company, it was very just, you know, silos down, like, everyone was kind of, interacting with everyone.
69 00:17:16.470 ⇒ 00:17:17.150 Amber Lin: Huh.
70 00:17:19.349 ⇒ 00:17:23.829 Amber Lin: Oh, you mentioned you were laid off. What was the reason that that happened?
71 00:17:23.839 ⇒ 00:17:33.559 Danielle Van Pelt: Just financials. I… I mean, that’s at least what they say, of course. I mean, I take them at their word, but yeah, I mean, that’s kind of just keeping the, the…
72 00:17:34.059 ⇒ 00:17:43.549 Danielle Van Pelt: we were having trouble, especially, I think, with… I don’t know, we were just having trouble, and it typically came down to, you know, dropping pretty much
73 00:17:43.959 ⇒ 00:17:58.139 Danielle Van Pelt: everyone that wasn’t necessary, and as… I mean, as also a project manager, you know, you know that that is the first to go, you know? Like, they think they can start taking on everything else once you’ve kind of
74 00:17:58.400 ⇒ 00:18:02.870 Danielle Van Pelt: help them feel how easy it is. I know, so….
75 00:18:03.160 ⇒ 00:18:06.719 Amber Lin: I see, so they don’t have any project managers right now.
76 00:18:06.720 ⇒ 00:18:09.140 Danielle Van Pelt: Correct. No, it’s no project management.
77 00:18:09.140 ⇒ 00:18:09.890 Amber Lin: Okay.
78 00:18:09.890 ⇒ 00:18:13.299 Danielle Van Pelt: So, like, if they’re flying by the seat of their pants now.
79 00:18:13.530 ⇒ 00:18:15.259 Amber Lin: Wow, okay, I see.
80 00:18:15.990 ⇒ 00:18:19.340 Amber Lin: Wow, I’ll see, we’ll see how long that goes.
81 00:18:19.340 ⇒ 00:18:21.569 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, it’ll be interesting, so….
82 00:18:21.570 ⇒ 00:18:23.140 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay.
83 00:18:23.340 ⇒ 00:18:25.390 Amber Lin: Then…
84 00:18:25.690 ⇒ 00:18:46.990 Amber Lin: I had a few questions when I was listening to you talk. I think your responsibilities are very much like what a startup PM would look like. It sounds like what I’m doing right now is just very different in terms of what the company is, because we’re currently… we are at a very similar size. We’re also around 15 people. We have our…
85 00:18:46.990 ⇒ 00:18:53.770 Amber Lin: engineering team, we have our sales, PM team, which is me and 2…
86 00:18:53.990 ⇒ 00:19:13.880 Amber Lin: I think one coordinator right now, and then we’re looking to hire another PM, since we’re getting more clients, but I think it’s a very similar scale that you’re working at. But, however, I think the difference is that we were… we are an agency and not a product company, so I’m not sure if that would align with what you want to do, because we don’t…
87 00:19:13.880 ⇒ 00:19:25.419 Amber Lin: develop products. We provide services, and we usually solve data problems. If ever we do a product solution, it’s still,
88 00:19:25.450 ⇒ 00:19:37.410 Amber Lin: specific to that customer’s problem, so only that customer would be using that product, and then we don’t want to go the product route. So I’m not sure if that’s an alignment with what you want.
89 00:19:37.870 ⇒ 00:19:56.530 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, I mean, that’s a good point to bring up. I don’t necessarily think that I have to go in the product direction. I think it’s more so… I think the reason that I applied to this job was it was just, like, I mean, it’s a… when I started looking, like, at research today, it’s just we did a lot of the same data analytics in regards of the.
90 00:19:56.530 ⇒ 00:19:57.270 Amber Lin: Oh, really?
91 00:19:57.270 ⇒ 00:20:10.319 Danielle Van Pelt: integrating with and stuff of that nature. So, like, I guess that’s the biggest thing. Like, yes, we did offer, yes, we did have, like, a SaaS product, but 42 Technologies was very…
92 00:20:10.580 ⇒ 00:20:16.370 Danielle Van Pelt: service-focused as, like, a… we have a SaaS product, and what we kind of
93 00:20:16.470 ⇒ 00:20:31.419 Danielle Van Pelt: bridged ourself on, or at the time, was a product… was much more based on a service as a part of the product, and a partnership above that. So I think it’s a… it’s fairly, you know, obviously, I did have a lot more
94 00:20:32.050 ⇒ 00:20:34.300 Danielle Van Pelt: Integration would just…
95 00:20:34.300 ⇒ 00:20:57.090 Danielle Van Pelt: program management for the product itself, you know? But a lot of my time or my focus was really on, like, the client onboardings, and a lot of those integration products, which really look almost identical to, at least to what I’ve looked at from case studies and stuff that you guys do. So, like, for instance, you know, plenty of the, I guess, projects that
96 00:20:57.090 ⇒ 00:21:07.619 Danielle Van Pelt: We would do at 42 is they would come in and, you know, we have our tool, our visualization layer, but everything that we are doing
97 00:21:07.910 ⇒ 00:21:09.640 Danielle Van Pelt: To get to that point.
98 00:21:09.730 ⇒ 00:21:28.659 Danielle Van Pelt: you know, is ETL, and we are, you know, taking a… I’m taking a contract, and then pretty much shooting out, you know, an epic and tickets, for engineers to kind of start working on a lot of that stuff. So, I think that the… the actual, I guess.
99 00:21:28.830 ⇒ 00:21:35.580 Amber Lin: What I did is very similar, it’s just not tied to specifically any product.
100 00:21:36.230 ⇒ 00:21:46.909 Amber Lin: I see, great. That’s… that helps my worries a lot. I remember you also said they hired you to bring up some predictability, and I kind of want to ask you what you think
101 00:21:47.120 ⇒ 00:22:06.909 Amber Lin: is the core principles for, say, a company like 42 or a company like us, what do you… what are the main principles you think about when you manage these projects? This might be more of an abstract question, because I… I know you brought up predictability. Is there anything else that you think about, or how do you measure your project teams against?
102 00:22:07.380 ⇒ 00:22:12.110 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, so, I guess the biggest thing was just a lot of
103 00:22:12.110 ⇒ 00:22:28.220 Danielle Van Pelt: we were… I mean, I guess the key factor was, like, velocity and things of that nature. There wasn’t really… I guess when I came in, they weren’t on, like, a sprint structure or anything, they just had a Kanban board, you know, they… there wasn’t any, like, formalized planning.
104 00:22:28.220 ⇒ 00:22:34.330 Danielle Van Pelt: meeting or anything like that. You know, it was, kind of like…
105 00:22:34.530 ⇒ 00:22:58.459 Danielle Van Pelt: some catch-all meetings and things of that nature with no formalized structure. So it was really, like, week by week, what are we working on? And my… I guess what I tried to come in and do was really about, kind of, trying to provide a lot of analytics to, like, I guess as a data analytics company, I thought it was really poor of how we all managed our own analytics of, like.
106 00:22:58.460 ⇒ 00:23:07.959 Danielle Van Pelt: just within our… of our product, I guess, or, like, our efficiencies within our own program or project, if you wanted to frame it that way.
107 00:23:09.240 ⇒ 00:23:33.529 Danielle Van Pelt: And so predictability, I guess, was the first thing, was just, like, getting some planning, so to start estimating tickets and stuff, to figure out, like, okay, can we start trying to determine what that work will be, and kind of fact, like, you know, figure out what the best route to do. We did through story points, we did that asynchronously, we then switched away from story points to something that was actually
108 00:23:33.750 ⇒ 00:23:54.690 Danielle Van Pelt: hours or, like, low to high hours base. It was really about, I guess, figuring out what works best for the team. I think the biggest thing that at least I came from a lot of… I came from Gap, which was a… had very formalized product teams, you know, with very, I guess, corporate structure of just, you know, very segmented. Everything is…
109 00:23:54.690 ⇒ 00:23:57.899 Danielle Van Pelt: You know, very siloed, and there’s a lot of…
110 00:23:58.280 ⇒ 00:24:18.200 Danielle Van Pelt: a lot of T’s that you have to cross to do things, and so I came from that, brought a lot of those, you know, basics of agile methodologies and things of that nature, and it was really about kind of figuring out, okay, at what point is, like, the operational rigor, like, too… is it becoming too difficult?
111 00:24:18.200 ⇒ 00:24:35.990 Danielle Van Pelt: much of, like, a… a hardship for, like, for a small team, and for, like, an agile, like, startup, and so it was really about, kind of, I think, figuring out what that was. There was a lot of, I guess, back and forth in regards of…
112 00:24:36.180 ⇒ 00:24:59.670 Danielle Van Pelt: a lot of struggles, I guess, I had with finding that productability. I don’t really… at some points, you know, like, I could have done better at certain things, but I really think it was just the company itself is in, like, a little bit of a disheveled space, where they are almost too agile and, like, too movement to say, like, they’re too open to change, I guess, of, like, you know.
113 00:24:59.670 ⇒ 00:25:02.619 Danielle Van Pelt: Planning for the current week is…
114 00:25:04.600 ⇒ 00:25:13.070 Danielle Van Pelt: you know, it’s… you want to be planning, I guess, a little bit more ahead. And so, I guess that is kind of what, you know, we ran into some struggles, I guess.
115 00:25:13.070 ⇒ 00:25:25.279 Amber Lin: See, did the company not have a strategic vision of what they want to be, or are they just responding to client requests? I mean, we should, but, like, does the company not have their own vision of what they want to be?
116 00:25:26.280 ⇒ 00:25:33.820 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, I think… I think there was definitely some… I think their leadership in general maybe lacked some…
117 00:25:34.980 ⇒ 00:25:45.310 Danielle Van Pelt: exactly what it was, to kind of, like, maybe they were just kind of searching for something to stay afloat, I guess? I would say that, I mean, my time at the end of the company was just… it was….
118 00:25:47.510 ⇒ 00:25:48.160 Amber Lin: Hmm.
119 00:25:48.880 ⇒ 00:26:04.379 Danielle Van Pelt: It was just beginning… it was definitely beginning to be, I guess, like, I was already starting to, like, look for other opportunities, or at least, like, think about it, just solely based on… it was just… I was putting in, I felt like, a lot of effort and feeding a lot of resistance to things that I feel like should…
120 00:26:05.420 ⇒ 00:26:10.359 Danielle Van Pelt: be helping, I guess, with the predictability, but it was almost like there was this big….
121 00:26:10.610 ⇒ 00:26:13.050 Amber Lin: What are some examples of that?
122 00:26:13.520 ⇒ 00:26:23.219 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, I think, I think the biggest things came up with, specifically, Oh, let’s see… Oh, gosh.
123 00:26:23.700 ⇒ 00:26:28.210 Danielle Van Pelt: Sorry, I’m getting a little lost in my own thoughts.
124 00:26:28.210 ⇒ 00:26:34.619 Amber Lin: That’s okay, you’re… I mean, you’re not working there anymore. This is very interesting for us to learn as well, because I think we’re, …
125 00:26:34.930 ⇒ 00:26:42.820 Amber Lin: In a similar stage, either a bit ahead or… Ahead or after them, so….
126 00:26:42.820 ⇒ 00:26:43.210 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah.
127 00:26:43.210 ⇒ 00:26:45.480 Amber Lin: Very interesting for me to hear as well.
128 00:26:45.700 ⇒ 00:26:53.549 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, it’s… yeah, it’s… as I was saying, I definitely go into it a lot, but yeah, it’s, it’s interesting, it was just… there was a lot of, I guess.
129 00:26:54.020 ⇒ 00:27:00.459 Amber Lin: A lot of trade-offs between product and customer work, and kind of just being like, you know, there was….
130 00:27:00.460 ⇒ 00:27:15.079 Danielle Van Pelt: we needed to work on a lot of the product things, but it was just… it pretty much just being, like, you know, when the CTO is working on, I guess, a lot of the customer-related things, I feel like you have a… starting to have a problem if that’s, like, continuously.
131 00:27:15.080 ⇒ 00:27:15.450 Amber Lin: Oh my goodness.
132 00:27:15.450 ⇒ 00:27:25.709 Danielle Van Pelt: how the shape of the company is. And so, especially at a SaaS company, when you really want someone like that to be working solely on, like, product.
133 00:27:26.230 ⇒ 00:27:39.250 Danielle Van Pelt: That nature, so I think that was a little bit of it. I’m not 100% sure all that was going wrong at the time, but I’m not sure, you know, it is… it’s troublesome to see where their stability is now, I guess, at least.
134 00:27:39.250 ⇒ 00:27:39.880 Amber Lin: I see.
135 00:27:39.880 ⇒ 00:27:41.210 Danielle Van Pelt: route left, I guess.
136 00:27:41.900 ⇒ 00:27:43.340 Amber Lin: I see, okay.
137 00:27:43.440 ⇒ 00:27:44.460 Amber Lin: …
138 00:27:45.820 ⇒ 00:28:02.409 Amber Lin: I mean, I… I asked a lot of questions on this specific company, and it was very interesting to hear, but I want to make sure you have time to ask questions about the company as well, so feel free. I think I have another, 10 minutes or so, so feel free to ask me anything.
139 00:28:02.410 ⇒ 00:28:07.520 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, no, I think the first question is, something that just came to my mind.
140 00:28:07.890 ⇒ 00:28:17.460 Amber Lin: So I’m gonna use the her pronouns. I was looking at the website. Could be a little outdated or not, because I was thinking that I saw maybe a few more, like, female presenting.
141 00:28:17.460 ⇒ 00:28:19.069 Danielle Van Pelt: individuals.
142 00:28:19.480 ⇒ 00:28:27.470 Danielle Van Pelt: On maybe LinkedIn, but how is, like, the team dynamic and things of that nature, and the culture of the company?
143 00:28:27.940 ⇒ 00:28:33.470 Amber Lin: So, I would say, … Our company, there’s…
144 00:28:33.490 ⇒ 00:28:44.369 Amber Lin: Me, there’s Annie, who’s a data analyst, she’s based in the US. And then there’s Hannah, who also is in LA. She’s a designer, and she helps lead partnerships.
145 00:28:44.370 ⇒ 00:28:56.910 Amber Lin: And there’s Anne, who’s also another designer, I think, including me, and that’s, the female team. And then our developers are… our two CEOs.
146 00:28:56.980 ⇒ 00:29:01.669 Amber Lin: And our developers, Are all male, and then….
147 00:29:01.710 ⇒ 00:29:06.140 Danielle Van Pelt: I think, and gender-wise, I would probably say, like, 40, 60.
148 00:29:06.280 ⇒ 00:29:20.179 Amber Lin: Or maybe 30, or 60, because a lot of our engineers are guys. I think in terms of culture, they’re very, very open. So my partner
149 00:29:20.330 ⇒ 00:29:39.439 Amber Lin: My partner’s also… I don’t… I’m sorry, I don’t want to assume. My partner is this… my partner is trans, and so when the CEOs came into LA and we met, I don’t think they have any problems with that, and I also joined the company because I think they’re very… they’re very open people, and I think…
150 00:29:40.090 ⇒ 00:29:49.159 Amber Lin: Having a good working environment is very important to me as well, so I don’t think you’ll have any problem
151 00:29:49.310 ⇒ 00:29:50.490 Amber Lin: with that.
152 00:29:52.020 ⇒ 00:29:54.299 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, that’s awesome. And then, I guess…
153 00:29:54.350 ⇒ 00:30:12.529 Danielle Van Pelt: with this, is this position, I guess, where is it reporting to? Is it reporting to you, or kind of just… in general, I just wanted to know that, and kind of, I guess, like, what that man… what… if it’s you, what is your management style? If it’s someone else, like, what is their management style? I just would like to hear a little bit about that.
154 00:30:12.720 ⇒ 00:30:19.089 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, totally. So, I report directly to the CEO, because we’re such a small company,
155 00:30:19.090 ⇒ 00:30:24.820 Amber Lin: We have a PM advisor that, we have him…
156 00:30:24.960 ⇒ 00:30:38.100 Amber Lin: just here and there to ask questions for now. And right now, we’re looking to hire project managers and also someone to lead the department. So if we do find that very senior
157 00:30:38.360 ⇒ 00:30:43.450 Amber Lin: delivery manager, I think we would report to him.
158 00:30:43.560 ⇒ 00:30:58.970 Amber Lin: The coordinators we have now report to me, but I think if you were to join, we would… you wouldn’t be reporting to me, per se. I think both of us would either be reporting to the CEO or reporting to the delivery manager.
159 00:31:00.040 ⇒ 00:31:00.740 Danielle Van Pelt: Cool.
160 00:31:01.100 ⇒ 00:31:02.440 Danielle Van Pelt: I’m good, and then….
161 00:31:02.440 ⇒ 00:31:07.609 Amber Lin: Oh, sorry, and the management, so I think it’s important to touch on that. They’re very, …
162 00:31:07.980 ⇒ 00:31:23.329 Amber Lin: they don’t micromanage, and they don’t have time to micromanage. I think a good part is that they did let me do a lot of things I wanted to do, so, I think you probably had that experience as well, when you wanted to implement things in the company. I usually just tell them.
163 00:31:23.340 ⇒ 00:31:35.800 Amber Lin: And they say, okay, and I go implement it, and they review it. So, I think that’s a benefit of this company. They also let me try out a lot of different teams, and try out a lot of different…
164 00:31:35.800 ⇒ 00:31:40.419 Amber Lin: possibilities of what I do, and this project management is what I landed on.
165 00:31:40.420 ⇒ 00:31:56.210 Amber Lin: eventually, so I think there’s a lot of flexibility and openness in the company, so as long as you deliver, and you’re curious, and there’s, you want to achieve or want to do things, I think they’re very open to what you would want to do.
166 00:31:56.340 ⇒ 00:31:58.700 Danielle Van Pelt: That’s very good to hear, very supportive.
167 00:31:59.940 ⇒ 00:32:05.820 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah, I think that… I think those are, like, my main questions, really. I guess, other than that, I think the main one would just be, kind of.
168 00:32:05.940 ⇒ 00:32:09.829 Danielle Van Pelt: Next steps or so to speak, so….
169 00:32:11.050 ⇒ 00:32:20.430 Amber Lin: I think next steps… after this interview, I’m gonna relay my notes and the meeting recording to my manager, to Uten, and then…
170 00:32:20.550 ⇒ 00:32:39.809 Amber Lin: We have a few other candidates that we’re also talking to, so I think you’ll hear back within, I think, a week or two. We’re trying to make the decision soon, because it’s been… hiring does take a lot of time from the actual work, so I think you can expect to hear back in a week or two about the next rounds or next steps.
171 00:32:39.810 ⇒ 00:32:47.680 Amber Lin: We’ll keep you in the loop, and always feel free to message Rico. I think you have him in the email if you need
172 00:32:47.700 ⇒ 00:32:55.679 Amber Lin: anything sooner, or any updates, I think feel free to message him, and then he will, relay it to the team.
173 00:32:56.020 ⇒ 00:32:59.560 Danielle Van Pelt: Awesome, thank you so much. It was wonderful meeting you today, Amber.
174 00:32:59.560 ⇒ 00:33:04.640 Amber Lin: Yeah, of course! You have my LinkedIn and my email, so if you want to ask me any questions, feel free.
175 00:33:04.910 ⇒ 00:33:08.889 Danielle Van Pelt: Awesome, thanks so… have a… have a wonderful day.
176 00:33:08.890 ⇒ 00:33:10.989 Amber Lin: Yeah, you too. Have a great one.
177 00:33:11.180 ⇒ 00:33:11.680 Danielle Van Pelt: Yeah.
178 00:33:11.820 ⇒ 00:33:12.770 Amber Lin: Bye.