Employee Spotlight: Barry Jones

As the self-admitted elder statesman of Violet Labs, staff engineer Barry Jones has seen the tech world transform from the dot com boom into the fast paced startup environment of today. Check out his story to learn more about how Barry utilizes that experience while leaning on his creative strengths to move the needle at Violet.

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How do you describe what you do at Violet Labs to your friends and family?

I like to tell them that we're trying to build software to help hardware engineers. If those hardware engineers are using their hands to build, we are trying to bring them modern software. If I could change careers I'd want to be a hardware engineer and start doing all this cool robotic stuff because I love building stuff.

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What originally led you to software engineering? 

So I got into it in 1999 right before the.com boom. My best friend was involved in startups, building a business selling domain names, back when those were a new thing. One could make a lot of money in it. He then asked me to come on board to help build out the app. At the time, I was a computer geek, but obviously, I had no background experience. There weren't computer science courses back then, so I picked up a lot of my foundation on the fly. I just decided this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to design software.  

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Tell me more about your first startup experience.

My friend and I built our company in 2000 selling domain names. People were buying 40,000 worth of domains - just buying them in bulk. Back in 1999, 2000 -that was a lot more difficult than it is nowadays. 

I am so glad I got to do that with him. The two of us had tried to set up other side projects in the past as well - we had the domain myimagestore.com. The idea was that people are going to start taking digital photos and they're gonna want to be able to upload them somewhere and share them with their friends. We spent a year designing this site and we reached out to all these colleges in our area and it was right around the time that MySpace was starting. Clearly they had more business acumen...

I just love creating things - and it became my passion to write software that can.

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What's your favorite part about leading people?

I really like seeing them grow. I’m allowed to instill a bit of passion into them. It's really important to be in a team of people that you can trust and get on with, but at the same time I also love being challenged by them as well; trying to have them ask a curious question and dive deeper into it, and in turn not just challenge me but to challenge each other to really think through the problem.

Being front-end Engineers, you've really got to think about how the users are going to use the software. I love having a team around me that's interested in that as well. It's a very creative process.

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Tell me about how the aesthetics of the application inspire you.

Yeah, I always remember one friend at school - we did our art class together and he'd always say to me you're such a perfectionist. You just always hold the piece of paper out and you turn it in different angles and look at it, but I can't help it. People are going to stare at Violet and I want it to look good! I'll do kind of subtle changes to not just the navigation but small things like the kind of buttons that we use on the site. It's always the small little things that evolve the app. I love seeing it. 

I've got screenshots of the app back from day one when I started and then a few months after that. The progression of the design is like art.

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What would you describe as the most challenging aspect of your job here at Violet?

I'll say the most exciting and the most challenging thing is that there's so much s*** to get done! It also takes a bit of guesswork at this stage, trying to assume what we think users are going to want. I like moving fast. I love working in a lean team so that we can just get s*** done. Although with that pace I don't want to make mistakes or lead the team in the wrong direction. So, I think the biggest challenge in an early stage startup is getting enough feedback!

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What kind of personality would you say succeeds at Violet?

One thing I've seen in all the people we have at Violet is they're very self-sufficient. I think you have to have the attitude of wanting to solve problems. I think everyone is pretty laid back as well. I have trust that everyone I work with will get their work done, and does not need to be done in a strict nine to five.

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Tell me about how you find your work life balance.

My creativity goes in waves and I need those breaks away. And also I'm a single dad. So my family is important to me and I have times where I have to go and take my son to the doctor or to the orthodontist or do a high school interview. I have flexibility which is important to me, but it's also the way that I'm most creative. Getting inspiration at nine o'clock at night and being able to knock out a couple of hours worth of work is more productive for me than trying to do that during a traditional nine to five.

Additionally, I love being outside walking my dog. My excuse to get away from my desk is to go for a short walk. I also have two kids who both do Taekwondo, so I love watching them progress. My son's almost at his black belt now. My daughter's artistic, similar to me, so we like to do art challenges. 

Cooking is another activity that brings balance to my life. I have a Blackstone grill, and I can cook anything on there. Every weekend my kids and I make 20 pancakes, bacon, eggs, all of it. But it's also a way to decompress. I can just kind of put some music on, be in the kitchen or out on the  Blackstone. It kind of comes back to that creativity in me again, you're making something. Food in this instance, not software. 

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What would you be doing if you weren't a software engineer?

I really want to be a landscape gardener or a gardener. I have fond memories of my grandad's greenhouse, all the plants he grew, the feeling when you open up that door; the warmth and the moisture and the smell all hit you. That is a strong memory that I still connect to.

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If you had a list of one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Hmm - Green Day Jesus of Suburbia. It's nine and a half minutes long. It's almost four songs blended into one, and it builds in a different story and a bit different rhythm.  I remember listening to Jesus of Suburbia when I worked in the UK at a commerce company. It'd be my go to song when I just want to focus and block everything else out. Yeah, I've been listening to that song for 20 plus years. I'm a massive Green Day fan and I'm going to see them for the first time this year. They're doing their 30th anniversary tour. 

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What's your most used emoji?

Thumbs up, yeah. Thumbs up emoji. you can just use it for pretty much anything. Just a quick and easy way to say “Yeah, great job.” 👍

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A classic - can't go wrong. Thanks, Barry!

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Interested in joining the Violet team? We're hiring! Check out our open listings at jobs.violetlabs.com.

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