We’re extending a BIG & official welcome to our OSCAR the Octopus wrangler and IT problem solver, Heather Beckman. Heather has been with us for several months, but this is her blog debut.
What do you do for Action Engineering and what do you like about it?
I’m in charge of the development of OSCAR, specifically testing and deploying the changes, and supporting IT. I like that I get to solve problems all the time. And I like working with the team at Action Engineering.
How is the OSCAR octopus wrangling going?
OSCAR and I are very close now. There are so many nuisances to the platform that there are still times when I find things that I’m like, “Oh, this is new, and I need to do a lot of research to figure out what’s going on.” My development time has become a lot more efficient because a lot of the things I know exactly what to do now, or where to find the problem.
You’re new to software development as a career. Was it your pandemic project?
I actually started before the pandemic, I studied by myself, and I took some coding courses online and built some projects, and then I decided to attend Bloom Institute. It was a year-long program. I did it part-time while I was working, and I just tried to learn as much as possible.
What do you do when you’re not OSCAR octopus wrangling?
I have three daughters, so I spend time with them, and I like to hike and spend time outside. I also love to paint and draw and read.
Did you grow up in Colorado?
No. I actually grew up in Missouri and Kansas but I’ve been in Colorado since 2014.
What are you working on at the moment?
Adding some new features to OSCAR and incorporating all the content that we’ve been creating around specific CAD systems and derivative documents.