In our newly launched Meet the Postie series, I’ll sit down with a fellow member of the Postie team to ask them questions about work, life, and everything in between. These posts will be loaded with relatable stories, tips on stress management and work/life balance, fun photos, and more. First up is Sean Walker, a beloved member of our engineering team. A self-proclaimed optimist, his energy jumps off the page. And these pictures 🤩 It just doesn’t get prettier than the places Sean has visited. Plus, there’s some super exciting news Sean shares if you make it all the way to the end! Let’s get started…
Name: Sean Walker
Location: Boise, Idaho
Team: Engineering
Time at Postie: 6 Years!
Favorite Food: Sushi
If you could travel to space, who would you take with you: My wife 4 sho
Pets: Luna, my maniac German Shepherd
Find Sean on LinkedIn!
Sean and his wife hiking rim to rim in the Grand Canyon
What inspired you to join Postie?
I was hiking a lot back then, so honestly I was initially excited because I thought, “Oh, I can work remotely. This is amazing.” But also I’d never worked in ad tech before, and I thought it would be interesting. And I like Jonathan, Postie’s CTO. I worked with Jonathan before, and I was like, “Oh, man, he was such a good person to work with, I want to work for him, for sure.”
What do you love most about your job?
The fact that I can program for money 🤑 I love programming. It’s almost as much as I love hiking. The fact that I can do it for money is incredible.
What are you most proud of professionally since joining Postie?
I’ve worked a lot on the dashboard of the Postie Platform. Seeing it work for years, we’ve been maintaining and improving it, but it works day to day really well. So being able to see people use it and how it affects people’s lives is really cool. So yeah.
Tell me something about your professional development journey.
Well, I’ve been a Postie for so long. When we first started, it was a lot of quick code hacking, back when the product was really young which was fun and exciting. We were changing stuff all the time, and stuff was breaking all the time. So in terms of progression, the platform, and those of us working on it, have definitely gotten more professional. We now have code reviews, certifications and checks required for everything. We’re definitely very thorough before making any changes which is good. I’ve become a better programmer because of it. It’s not the Wild West. There’s always code review Figuring out “Does this change things? Does this do the thing it says it does? Is it gonna break anything else? Does this affect PII?” I think about all that stuff now.
What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?
I love programming. My whole worldview is programming. So the fact that programming actually is not the end of the value we bring to customers. It’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned. It might sound shallow, but it’s given me a better perspective on what we’re doing as a team and how I contribute to the overall picture at Postie.
How have you and your role evolved since joining Postie?
Like I’ve mentioned, programming is my world. My biggest evolution has evolved from simply writing code and pushing things into production, to really thinking about the ad tech ecosystem. Looking at that generally, and thinking “How can we bring value to customers?” It’s helped me evolve to a higher level view of how we can actually help an advertiser do the thing they wanna do easier, better, faster. It’s an interesting challenge. I now work on efficiency for the end user of the overall Postie offering not just the platform itself.
What do you think is the most important skill that you bring to the table?
I was gonna say programming. But honestly, I don’t think it is. I think it’s my optimism. I’m a pretty optimistic person. So hopefully, my optimism affects people in the company in a positive way. I actually had a friend who told me I have toxic positivity. At first that sounds terrible, but maybe it’s true. I hope I influence people through my optimism.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from working with your team at Postie?
A lesson in terms of programming, probably to double check my intuition and my thought process. Some of the programmers on our team are really good. I’m okay (side note: Sean is great). But some of them are really, really good. And I’m always just blown away by what they can do. So the most important lesson for me is to just try to live up to their standards.
What’s your favorite memory from working at Postie?
Any of the offsites. Funny story, but I missed an offsite in Austin, and I wish I was there because someone took a picture of this guy who was sitting outside with his laptop on a table, and a sign that said “looking for an entry level developer job” I shared that picture on Twitter (X), and it was my first ever viral post. Which of course was really cool. But yeah, any of the offsites are always amazing.
Do you have any strategies for dealing with stress at work?
I just work on side projects whenever I get stressed. Programmers always have that one file on the computer that’s perfect code. No one touches it, it’s just all in their minds. So this code, it’s my code and it’s perfect. So when I’m stressed, I just go back to that file. I edit it, and it calms me down.
What industry changes or trends do you think will have the biggest impact?
In terms of ad tech, there’s already been huge impacts with the third-party cookie going away. And with all the laws and regulations in Europe that will be reflected across the globe, the biggest thing to watch is how that all changes ad tech. The regulations coming are good. I honestly think regulation is needed because it was out of control, so I think legal ramifications and changes are probably the biggest changes coming for programmers in ad tech.
Do you have any mentors you’d like to shout out who have made an impact in your life?
Yeah, Nick Murphy is probably one of the best programmers I’ve ever seen. Also, Chris Schulte; he’s a really funny guy, but he’s also a really good programmer. I work with both of them here at Postie and they’re amazing people.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I enjoy backpacking and hiking; mostly backpacking, though I don’t typically do too many day hikes. I also like walking my dog. Add dog walking to tips on how to deal with stress.
Sean and his dog, Luna
What would your perfect weekend look like?
Probably wake up at like 3am. Go to the Sawtooths, a local National Forest near me, and do a one or two night backpacking trip. Come back on Sunday night. That’s probably my perfect weekend.
What’s something surprising that not many people know about you?
Probably how passionate I actually am about hiking. Unless you are in my inner circle I don’t think you’d know that about me.
Sean on a quick overnighter to a mountaineering hut in Alaska
What type of books or movies do you enjoy?
This is going to sound weird, but I like the movies where the main character is going to die at the end and everyone knows. Movies that are complete 100% non-stop action. Those are my favorite movies.
Do you have any creative outlets?
Programming. And I’ve been getting into YouTube and some streaming on Twitch.
What’s a cause you are passionate about?
Making sure the national parks stay national parks forever. I have had so many good experiences backpacking and hiking through national parks everywhere in every state. I just want them to just keep doing what they’re doing, you know. I think all future generations should experience what I experience. I think they’re super special places.
Sean hiking the Napali Coast in Kauai
What’s something you’ve always wanted to try or something you’ve wanted to learn?
I would love to make music. I hear music and I feel the emotion behind the people’s stuff, even if it’s electronic, I still feel it. It’s just a really cool thing that I like to do, so I’d like to make it.
What’s the best thing that’s happened to you in the last few months?
I don’t usually like to talk about my personal life too much. But this is an interview. So let’s go for it. The best thing that happened to me recently was finding out I’m gonna be a father. That’s the coolest thing that’s happened to me.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be? And why?
Probably teleportation. Because why wouldn’t you just want to avoid planes? That’s not it; trains, cars – no – you just wanna be there. So teleportation. You could teleport into a wall. So it’s risky. It’s dangerous.
And with that, I’m going to teleport right out of here. 🚀 See you next time!
