Meet the Team: Landon Volkmann

Tell us about you! (Where are you from, hobbies/interests, things you do outside of work!)

Hey! I started and enjoyed much of life in Wichita, KS until I found myself craving a bit of a change. I moved to Kansas City, MO, and after finding a degree, a dog, and a downright amazing person to do life with, we all decided to move to Denver to enjoy a bit of novelty and mountains.

When life creates an opening, I usually try to fill it with things I enjoy, like hiking, playing piano, some clumsy skiing, trying out recipes, a few completely uncompetitive intramural leagues (think kickball + drinking), and of course, the other trappings of "engineering-type folk" like dungeons and dragons (started a campaign in 2020 that appears will last forever) and video games with my partner Lexi and our pup Lola (Tears of the Kingdom, at the moment).

What does a Mobile Software Engineer do anyway? How did you get into Engineering?

I originally went to college pursuing a Philosophy degree, intending to go to law school. When I wasn't contemplating the human condition as a freshman in college, I found I had a lot of free time on my hands. I decided to pick up Python (a lovely little coding language) in my downtime, and before long, I found myself trading in my propositional logic for discrete mathematics and graduating with a computer science degree.

Though it took me a minute, I've found being a mobile developer a true delight. I get to spend my days writing code that runs on the little screens we carry around in our pockets daily. Building features and being able to touch the stuff I built with my meat fingers is something that really cracks my brain. Then there's the collaborative piece to make sure the phone is getting what it needs from various servers and push notification systems, all the while being a dutiful citizen of the platforms (AKA playing nicely with Apple, Google, etc..); it all results in very few dull days which I quite enjoy.

What's your favorite thing about your role here at Going?

My favorite part of my role here at Going is the opportunity to collaborate with some truly exceptional people. In my experience, true job satisfaction comes from caring about the thing you're making or doing, and that seems to be a common thread that runs through every person here. At the end of the day, the folks here just care, and I find that fabulous.

What advice would you give to a candidate interested in working at Going?

Heh, honestly, see above. Show your capacity for earnestly caring about what you do, and the rest will follow suit.

What brought you to Going in the first place? What's your why (why Going?)?

I originally came from a medical tech background, and I was looking for a change. Don't get me wrong; I took a great deal of pride and very real joy in writing software that helped doctors, nurses, PAs, and other medical personnel provide care for folks who needed it, but I really liked the idea of getting out from behind that HIPAA wall and out into the public app store where anybody could download the stuff I was working on.

Cut to a buddy of mine (and long-time SCF/Going member) sending me a link to a job posting for a mobile position here at Going. I was deeply interested because my partner is the daughter of a lifelong flight attendant. Through the miracle of flying standby, I got to experience first-hand just how valuable affordable air travel really can be for trips that seemed otherwise impossibly cost-prohibitive before. I at least had to shoot my shot.

I blinked, and then I heard my new manager talk about the app we were to work on and publish in early 2024. Cut again to me writing this little blurb, and that app is now live in the app store, check it out here. For me, this experience will forever be a testament to how quickly life can happen.

What's your favorite travel destination and why?

My favorite destination to date has to be Salzburg, Austria. The weather was mild, the architecture stunning, and the food about knocked me over. Critically, I came to Salzburg with effectively no expectations. We were traveling about in Germany and realized it'd be a reasonably cheap Flix bus ticket to pop over to Austria for a few days. If you haven't had the chance to travel sans itinerary, I'd definitely encourage it (I promise it's only uncomfortable for a bit).

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I don't exactly know who planted this seed. When I was little, I was absolutely smitten with the romantic notion of being a baker. I don't understand why eight-year-old-me was so taken by the peaceful solitude I envisioned a baker enjoys every morning. Still, I get to partake in a respectable simulacrum of that imagined peace when I sit down and sink my teeth into a programming problem for a few hours. I also do my best to bake some bread for the week (pita, simple loaf, pizza dough, etc..) almost every weekend. Hey Siri, play "The Best of Both Worlds" by Hannah Montana.