For the fifth rendition of our “employee spotlight” series, we caught up with Taylor Veith to learn more about his role and experience with Thinaer. Taylor has been at the company for over four years now and serves as the AVP of R&D and Classified Solutions. Taylor has been a vital and versatile member of the Thinaer team bringing cutting edge technology and powerful solutions to market.
Read on in this employee spotlight to get a peek into Taylor’s experience at Thinaer and what he had to say about his experience thus far.
Q: How long have you been with Thinaer? Have you always been in this particular role?
I started at Thinaer 4 ½ years ago as a Senior Software Engineer. Since then, I’ve served various technical leadership roles at the company, mostly focused on R&D around our hardware offerings, as well as the platform that we built to bring it all together.
Q: How would you describe your role? What are your responsibilities?
As head of R&D at Thinaer, I am expected to have an in-depth understanding of Thinaer products, customer requirements, core engineering concepts, and the tech industry as a whole. As a software engineer, I involve myself in our own products by getting into the code, understanding why we chose certain frameworks, libraries, cloud services, etc.
In addition to our own products, I am expected to have a wide and up to date knowledge of the general field of engineering and technology. I achieve this by maintaining personal connections in the field, attending trade conferences, building personal projects, reading press releases, and even following relevant businesses through social media. These core R&D responsibilities also extend to my work in the classified solution space.
Q: What exciting projects have you been working on lately?
One project I’m very excited about is our effort around “Thinaer Enabled”. Many of our customers have existing solutions that lack the convenient modern amenities they’ve come to depend on after using Thinaer, such as condition based monitoring and alerts, realtime and historical data analytics, external system integrations, and modern user interfaces. By utilizing Thinaer’s powerful ingest engine, Thinaer Enabled opens many different routes for customers to pipe data they didn’t even know they had directly into the Thinaer platform, with or without the support of their equipment’s manufacturer. Our customers are breathing new life into their 5 year old RFID systems, 20 year old CNC machines, 50 year old mixers, and more.
Q: How would you say your role helps your fellow team members and/or customers?
The role of R&D helps both the Thinaer team and our customers by stepping back and taking a look at what’s new and how it can be used as a building block for something greater. The question we ask ourselves is not necessarily how to solve a problem. We ask ourselves how we can use new technology, new processes, new methodologies, to create new products, or improve existing ones. It’s from this repertoire that we pull out the solutions our customers love, which in turn makes everyone’s lives a little easier.
Q: What do you love most about working for Thinaer?
We’re small enough that we still sort of have the startup vibe, yet we’re landing Fortune 100 customers. The office environment is very relaxed, not overly corporate (just the right amount), and we get free lunch. There’s a level of trust between employees that I think only a smaller company can really handle, which leads to the easiest to manage work-life balance. The opportunity for employees to grow within the company is huge, and you don’t need to look far to see that in action.
Q: What have you learned since starting at Thinaer, personally and professionally?
This team is packed with smart, dedicated, down to earth individuals. Being in that sort of environment really pushes a person to be the best they can be, all while retaining their humanity and balance. I’ve learned a lot here, both about technology and about myself, and it’s all because of the team and our great customers.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
I love trains and planes. I enjoy hiking, biking, fishing, camping, traveling.. If you name a National Park, National Monument, National Seashore, National Grassland, National Forest… there’s a decent chance we’ve been there.
I’m really into electromagnetic radiation (radio, microwave, light, heat, etc.) and its practical applications (communication, entertainment, healthcare, everything, etc.). It amazes me that anytime, anywhere, there is some sort of EMR passing through your body. AM, FM, Shortwave, ATSC, ATCS, ADS-B, BLE, WiFi, Cellular, Microwave, MMwave, …, analog, digital, foreign, domestic, plaintext, encrypted, terrestrial, satellite, sunlight, heat.. it’s everywhere!!