CPM Rising Star: Josh Tomlinson

Josh Tomlinson, CPMStar’s Senior Software Engineer, describes a typical day in his life working remotely from Los Angeles, California.

CPM Rising Stars is a series about the employees working behind the scenes at CPMStar and what they do day to day within their roles.

Can you introduce yourself and describe your role at CPMStar?

My name is Joshua Tomlinson and I work as a Senior Software Engineer at Aditude/CPMStar. I’m in charge of managing the infrastructure and development of CPMStar products. I lead a small team of engineers who work closely with our sales department to drive feature development and partner integrations.

What does a typical day look like for you at CPMStar? Walk us through your daily responsibilities.

My day usually starts with catching up on slack and emails. I try to finish any hanging work before heading into planning meetings. Afterwards I do daily standups with engineers on my team to offer help or guidance. Next on the list would be a lunch break. The second half of my work day is usually heads down work where I’m working on completing tickets.

How did you end up working at CPMStar? What inspired you to join the team?

CPMstar did a recruiting sprint at my school. I sent an email stating my interest in working as a software engineer. I met the previous owner in person and answered a few technical questions on the spot and got asked to come in to do an official technical interview.  I came in and interviewed and was asked to come on. I was inspired by the idea of getting to work with computers.

What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?

I’m really into martial arts. I practice Brazilian Jiujitsu, Wrestling, and Wing Chun. I’ve been training for almost 16 years now. Ideally, I see myself training for the rest of my life.

What has been your most exciting or rewarding project at CPMStar so far?

I enjoyed greenfielding a video compression service. It was nice to work on something new and develop it from the ground up and see it working in production.

What are some common challenges you face in your role, and how do you overcome them?

Debugging distributed systems can be a challenge. Tenacity is definitely a super power, but more than anything it’s just developing systems that support progress and increasing observability that makes a difference in the end.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from your colleagues that’s made a big impact on your work?

I think that adjusting to each individual's style and producing code as a team leads to better readability and cooperation.

What advice would you give someone looking to pursue a similar career?

Go for it. There’s always room for improvement. Just start today and keep getting better. You’ll be surprised where you find yourself in five years.