Meet Our Resident Cool Guy, Nick!

While 2020 has been weird and winding and full of the unknown, there’s one thing we can count on—the people. Resilient, kind, thoughtful, resourceful, generous, an endless list of adjectives that describes the folks on the Route team. 

This week, though, there’s one fella’ that we want to recognize. He makes Route a better place to work and play, and he lifts us all up—even from the glowing screen of a Zoom call. Without him, Route wouldn’t be the same.

This Route shout-out goes to the one, the only, Nick Lloyd!

Who’s Nick?

I’m from Utah! I have a wife, Jen, and four kids (two boys, two girls). I am huge into skiing, VR, board games, and of course technology! I was in the US Army for almost 7 years and deployed to Afghanistan for 9 months. I love to build things, and I recently completed a project making plantation shutters for my house. I love boutique board games and I’ve kickstarted over 60 of them.

What Made You Notice Route?

A friend of mine interviewed for an engineering position here and was rejected. He knew I was also looking for a job change and suggested I contact the CTO and apply. I thought it was incredible that anyone would get rejected by a company and still recommend them, so I reached out!

That Moment You Said, “Yeah, I definitely need to work here”?

Ryan, the CTO, had me convinced within an hour that Route was where I wanted to be. He completely flipped all the things I wanted from a job on their head, and that he had something better to offer me. I also remember meeting with Taylor Fisher and feeling like the caliber of people being brought into Route was incredible.

What’s Been the Biggest Surprise Yet?

The outlandish success of the company. When I started there were around 30 employees and only three engineers. I believed in the company and I thought it was going to succeed, but I had no idea just how quickly it would happen and how fast it would grow.

How’s Route Helped Your Career Goals?

Route has been absolutely incredible for both my career and my professional development. I’ve been able to level up much faster here than I could have hoped for just about anywhere else. I’ve been able to take on a leadership role here that has given me the ability to have a much larger impact on the product than I would have otherwise. I’ve learned so much from the leadership team here about what right looks like and how to build a product correctly from the ground up.

Tell Us About Your Favorite Project

I architected our package tracking system from scratch and we’ve since integrated with a half-dozen carriers using this system. It’s been an incredible journey from conception to implementation.

What’s Your Team Like?

My team is absolutely incredible. Honestly, every member of the team is crushing it right now. The thing I enjoy the most is that rather than fitting the typical anti-social developer mold, the engineers at Route are some of the friendliest, most approachable people around. I enjoy interacting with each of them!

How Are You Tackling Challenges?

Scale. When I took over the Tracking team earlier this year, we were handling a few hundred thousand packages a month. In September, we processed more than 5 million. We had to figure out how to build our systems to handle the growth without keeping us up at night, and I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to accomplish this.

What About the Culture?

Route thrives on energy.

The energy of employees to build the most amazing tracking and product discovery system in the world. The energy of merchants who love what Route has to offer them. The energy of our users who use the app constantly. Route exudes that energy, harnesses it, focuses it, and gives it back to the employees who work so hard every day to bring the vision to the world. We’re in this together every step of the way.

How ‘Bout Them Values?

Team over ego is not something most engineers are used to. So many companies out there encourage the lone developer approach—where you hoard knowledge and try to make others feel less than to stoke your own ego.

Route is a breath of fresh air for us. We hire engineers who care more about collaboration and succeeding together than about proving they have the biggest brain. It shows in the way we treat each other and the way we create success at every level.