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Office Profile: Meet Grandpa Eric!

expensifymeg —  June 14, 2011 — Leave a comment

Like all grandpas, Eric likes to take a 5 a.m. constitutional.

Name: Eric Sigler

Alter Egos, if any: I thought I got rid of that evidence.

Hometown: Los Angeles, Omaha, Palestine (Texas), Denver, St. Louis, Castle Rock, Rolla, Kansas City, San Francisco.

Expensify Job Title/Role: Geek

When did you start working for Expensify? February 2011

What is the most exciting project you’ve completed so far for Expensify?  Rebuilding Expensify’s mail sending service to use Amazon SES.

When you’re not fine-tuning expense reports that don’t suck, what projects do you work on in your off-time?  Laser etching or welding anything that I can get my hands on, wandering around San Francisco.

From the Proust Questionnaire:

What is your greatest fear?  Killer robots.

What is your favorite occupation?  Avoiding killer robots.

On what occasion do you lie? When confronted with killer robots, I usually say things like “This sentence is false.”

Which words or phrases do you over use? I tend to use “This sentence is false” a lot.

How would you like to die? Peacefully, and not at the hands of a killer robot.


In Announcements
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Office Profile: Meet Zhenya

expensifymeg —  June 7, 2011 — 1 Comment

Professional Adventurer

Name: Zhenya

Alter-Egos, if any: 

Hometown: Chisinau, Moldova

Expensify Job Title/Role: Everything Man – I pick up slack across the board.

When did you start working for Expensify? When you still had to walk uphill, both ways!

What is the most exciting project you’ve completed so far for Expensify? It feels like Expensify itself is an on-going, ever evolving project.  I’m excited of how far it has grown from the day I joined – and that the ride is only going to get more exciting from here!

When you’re not fine-tuning expense reports that don’t suck, what projects do you work on in your off-time? Taking pictures, pedaling up hills and other general mischief.

From the Proust Questionnaire:

What is your greatest fear? Paper cuts in the eye.  Dying and missing out on something really cool happening afterwards.

How would you like to die? Happy and fulfilled.  See fear above.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?I would have teeth that always stayed clean so they never needed to be brushed.

Where would you like to live? Switzerland – in a wood house right by the alps.

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Office Profile: Say G’day to Tom

expensifymeg —  May 18, 2011 — 4 Comments

This world weary traveler is just daydreaming of ways to make your expense reports that much better.

Name: Tom Jacobs

Alter Egos, if any: DJ Hats Magee

Hometown: Wye River, Victoria, Australia

Expensify Job Title/Role: Mobile & Integrations

When did you start working for Expensify? July 2009

What is the most exciting project you’ve completed so far for Expensify? Flipping the site upside down

When you’re not fine-tuning expense reports that don’t suck, what projects do you work on in your off-time? My other business, “Vacuum cleaners that don’t suck”, which didn’t work out so well.

Even Tom has to cycle away from that joke as fast as he can.

(From the Proust Questionnaire)

What is your greatest fear? Fear itself, and also birds pooping on me.

What is your favorite journey? Any trip involving a stop at “the centre of the earth”.

On what occasion do you lie? Only while taking a lie detector.

Which words or phrases do you over-use? “Cowabungtastic”. Used it there for the first time, now it has been used too many times.

What do you most value in your friends? Their ability to keep a straight face when I exclaim “Cowabungtastic”.

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Office Profile: Meet Ayu

expensifymeg —  May 4, 2011 — Leave a comment

Software Engineer ahoy! That's Ayu on the right.

Photo credit: @coni

Name: Ayumi Yu

Alter Egos, if any: DJ Yumi

Hometown: Petaluma, CA

Expensify Job Title/Role: Software Engineer

When did you start working for Expensify? Feb 2011

What is the most exciting project you’ve completed so far for Expensify? Top secret, it’s still in the works. But it’s really big and you’ll definitely end up using it!!

When you’re not fine-tuning expense reports that don’t suck, what projects do you work on in your off-time?  Conjuring up startup ideas, and loving electronic music.

(From the Proust Questionnaire)

Who are your real-life heroes?  Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet.

What is the quality you most admire in a man? In a woman?  Honesty!

Which words or phrases do you most over-use? “LOL” and most expletives

Where would you like to live?  Japan. ^_^

What is your most obvious characteristic? Really Lulzy

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Office Profile: Meet Mich

expensifymeg —  April 27, 2011 — 2 Comments

Your friendly Pro-Tip provider.

Name: Mich, and/or That Awesome Person Over There

Alter-Egos, if any: Mighty Mouse, Spunky, David’s son, Wito’s son, my little brother’s little brother

Hometown: Mexico City

Expensify Job Title/Role: Design Engineer, aka the Designer and the Engineer

When did you start working for Expensify? August 2010

What is the most exciting project you’ve completed so far for Expensify?  The Expensify Experience redesign

When you’re not fine-tuning expense reports that don’t suck, what projects do you work on in your off-time? Improving my drum skills and watering my personal blog

(From the Proust Questionnaire)

What is your greatest fear?  Spiders and other creepy crawlers. And tall people.

What is your favorite occupation (way of spending time)? Rockband drums (see below)

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Shortness

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Tallness.

What is the quality you most admire in a man? In a woman? These two questions express a heteronormative culture and are not very encompassing of non-binary gender identified people, so I will not answer them.

How would you like to die?  Flying.

 

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The Hunt for Engineers: Expensify and the surprisingly difficult challenge of finding the right people

expensifymeg —  March 18, 2011 — 33 Comments

As many of our regular readers have probably noticed, we’ve been mentioning here and there for quite some time that we are in the market for new employees. And as we’ve said before, we’re taking a drastically slower route toward hiring than many startups do. But we’re being extra picky about who we hire, because we’re trying to preserve two things that are very important to us:

  • the integrity of our product, and
  • the corporate culture we’ve very carefully crafted

In other words, not just any Computer Science major will do. In fact, we don’t even care if you have a college degree. We don’t care if you’re a U.S. citizen.

What we do care about?

  • a great work ethic, almost to the point that some of your friends might call you masochistic. We work long, hard hours doing what we love, and if you’re the kind of person who wants to clock out at 5:00 or spend half the day surfing LOLCats, this isn’t the place for you.
  • a great character: fair, honest, with a decent sense of humor, and absolutely zero drama. Please, we get enough drama from watching Dexter.
  • talented and fast at picking new things up: you should be technologically multilingual, with the kind of intellectual flexibility that would make Neo’s bullet-avoiding backbend in The Matrix look like your grandma doing the limbo on a geriatric cruise. This doesn’t just apply to programming, though we demand a high level of talent and capability in that arena, for sure: what else are you good at? Can you speak in front of a group? Explain multiple step processes to your luddite relatives? Make a mean seven-layer dip? In essence, what else are you bringing to the table?
  • ambition: you’ve got to have it. We don’t want Expensify to be your final resting place; that’s just not how this industry works. We want people who are mobile, constantly looking for a next great project, working on side projects of their own, and with big plans for the future. And we want to help you get there, too.

Generally, we’ve found that our best applicants also have the following in common:

  • programming experience from way before their college years
  • a zest for adventure – everyone on staff is a world traveler, and have what one of our engineers referred to as a “willingness to get into trouble”
  • curriculum vitae that extend far beyond the classroom and the office: your most impressive work was probably done for the fun of it, anywhere from a junior high school bedroom to an exotic beach somewhere (our preferred location)

The point we’re trying to make is: the expectations are high, but the rewards are higher, and if you think you’ve got what it takes, we’d love to hear from you. We’ll sponsor a visa, buy your lunches, and propel your career to the next level – if you’re the right fit.

In Company Life , , , ,
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Web News Wednesday: Oh, the places we’ll go!

expensifymeg —  March 16, 2011 — 2 Comments

While it’s true that we’re no Dr. Seuss, we are definitely going places. Here’s a short list of upcoming events we’ll be attending, sponsoring, and/or speaking at in the next couple of months:

Kynetx’s awesome Live Web conference in South Jordan, UT will feature, among other great speakers, our very own CEO and Grand Master of Dissenting Voices David Barrett, who will be speaking about When Live Web Goes Bad! You can register at impact.kynetx.com to attend this conference spanning March 22 and 23 of this year.

Expensify loves Real Estate agents – and their accountants love Expensify! David will be part of a panel here in Atlanta March 31-April 1, discussing the hypothetical-that’s-not-too-hypothetical, “What if computers collaborated like humans?” We know David’s really excited to meet more of our friends in this industry, and we hope if you’re into Real Estate you’ll consider stopping in to meet with him at the end of the month! You can register for the event at retechsouth.com/attend.

We have to admit that the event we’re really, really excited for this spring, though, is Finovate right here in San Francisco. On May 11, Tom and David will be demonstrating some spectacular new features that we promise will get your heart pounding with Expensify love. So if you get a chance, register now at finovatespring2011.eventbrite.com – you won’t want to miss this one.

See you at the conferences!

In Thought Leadership , , ,
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Expensify’s Guide to SXSW 2011

expensifymeg —  March 11, 2011 — 2 Comments

SXSW

You might be wondering why Expensify isn’t at Austin’s notoriously cool South by Southwest Music (and Tech) Festival this year. We do love Austin, Texas. But alas, we’ve committed ourselves to staying in the Bay Area for a little bit to finish polishing up some great new features we want to roll out for you all sooner than later. That commitment doesn’t stop us from daydreaming, though, about what we’d do if we were at SXSW this year. In particular, we’re in love with the music – it’s SXSW at its roots.

Top Three Bands We’d Like to Hear:

  • Zion I & The Grouch: hip-hop legends from the Bay Area (represent!)
  • Gay for Johnny Depp: alt-country, yeah, but mostly we just love the name
  • Noah and the Whale: I (Meghan) have admittedly been loving this band for some time, so I’m pretty jealous of anyone who catches them this year

What about you guys? Who’s attending SXSW? What can you not wait to see and hear? Let us know in the comments!

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Web News Wednesday: Expensify featured in Money

expensifymeg —  March 9, 2011 — 4 Comments

Well spotted Expensify recommendation in the latest issue of Money magazine: thanks to Expensify friend Patrick for sending it in!

In other news:

fundedIDEAS voted us one of the Top 300 Startups of 2011, based – as they tell us – on the strength of our business model, our management team, our industry and sector outlook, and our investor success rate. Or, in plain old English, because we rock. We really appreciate the recognition, and know that it’s primarily because of a combination of a great staff (which we’re looking to add more of – see https://www.expensify.com/jobs for more info) and fantastic users that we’ve come this far.

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From the Help Desk: How do we know your eReceipts will stand up to an IRS audit?

expensifymeg —  March 4, 2011 — Leave a comment

With Tax Day looming, many of you have been asking our Help Desk just how certain you can be that the eReceipts Expensify Guarantees are, in fact, IRS-compatible and really guaranteed.

While we really don’t want to put ourselves in the position of legally advising anyone on their taxes – you should talk to a tax lawyer for that – we can say, with pride, that we meet and exceed all of the requirements put forth by the IRS in Publication 463.

Here are the basic rules to keep in mind:

  • Your purchase must be under $75
  • We can’t create eReceipts for hotel bills – no lodging charges, then.
  • The IRS requires non-paper receipts to be Timely, Accurate, and Written – our syncing with your bank and credit card ensure the first two, and by virtue of creating eReceipts in a permanent electronic form, we’ve ensured the last

We worked in close conjunction with the IRS to ensure that our eReceipts would stand up to a tough test – and as one Expensify client recently learned when his contractor expense report with the Department of Defense was audited, these eReceipts stand up to the toughest.

In Product Info , , , ,
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