SPS Technology - Spstech

Giving back to the AWS community

Open source has become the de facto way to build software not only in tech, but across diverse industries. As companies use open source code to build their own commercial products and services, they also see the strategic value of contributing back to those projects. Since at least 2017 SPS has seen the benefits of contributing back to the open source community in ways large and small. Recently with the acceptance of Add ClientMetadata to SRP auth flow #90 to the aws-sdk-net-extensions-cognito repository another step has been made to contribute back to the community and share additional features out to all consumers of this extension.
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→ 11:24 AM, Jan 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Partners with, and Sponsors, Society of Women Engineers - University of MN Chapter

SPS Commerce is excited to partner with and sponsor the University of Minnesota Chapter of SWE (Society of Women Engineers) for the Fall 2022 – Spring 2023 school year! Throughout the year, there will be multiple opportunities for SPS to get involved and support SWE’s mission to empower women to achieve full potential in careers as engineers and leaders, expand the image of the engineering and technology professions as a positive force in improving the quality of life, and demonstrate the value of diversity and inclusion.
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→ 1:30 PM, Oct 18 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

My Journey to Becoming an SPS Intern (+Tips and Tricks) This post is the first part of a series in which we explore the journey to becoming an SPS Intern along with Melissa Wood, 2022 Summer Technology Learning Services Intern at SPS Commerce. Post 1: Applying When I was applying for internships last fall, there was a lot about the process that I was unaware of. I thought it would be easy and that I would land a role quickly (boy, was I wrong).
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→ 1:57 PM, Oct 12 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

September GoMN Meetup

Real people and real pizza, what a combo! Join us in person or virtually for “Observing Golang: OpenTelemetry from Code to Prod”, presented by Roni Dover, CTO and Co-Founder at Digma. GoMN Meetup, September 21, 6pm CDT at SPS Tower We also provide a virtual option, via Zoom, for those uncomfortable attending in-person. Meetup Registration Here!

→ 12:55 PM, Sep 2 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Commerce joins TechNova Women+ in Tech Hackathon

SPS Application Engineer Charlotte Countryman shared her experience as a judge for the TechNova Hackathon! SPS Commerce was proud to team up to support the student organizers from the University of Waterloo with their second Women+ in Tech Hackathon. Read about the two projects that stood out the most to her over here.

→ 2:55 PM, Aug 30 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Commerce REST API Standards Now Open Source

The SPS Commerce Tech Team has been working tirelessly over the past few years in curating a single set of technology best practices that we call Guardrails. These Guardrails are the culmination of years of experience from our engineering teams in designing, building, implementing, deploying, and operating best-of-breed software on the world’s largest retail network. These Guardrails consist of high-level technology decisions such as Language and Framework selection or DevOps Practices and drive all the way into expectations around Secret Management and Environments.
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→ 12:41 PM, Aug 26 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Innovation is for Everyone!

Recently, I joined the first hackathon, aka innovation project, of my life. The hackathon was part of our internal Tech Jam conference at SPS, where we work on solving challenges, exploring ideas, learning new things, building, and sharing our wins and findings with the entire tech team to close out the conference. I had always hesitated to be part of a hackathon event. I thought this was only for software engineers, programmers, coders, and developers.
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→ 12:47 PM, Aug 1 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

TechJam 2022: Back to the Jam!

Each year SPS Technologists participate in a volunteer-led internal tech conference, called TechJam. Read more about a few past TechJams from 2020 & 2021! 🎉 Our team of 27+ volunteers did everything to get TechJam up and running this year: from hosting Zoom prep sessions to crafting NFTs, from running a CFP process to source talks to creating our awesome logos. As the week wraps up, we wanted to share more about the process of TechJam.
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→ 1:44 PM, Jul 21 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

How we used Jaeger to improve the performance of an application

At SPS Commerce we are moving all our APIs into Kubernetes. There are many reasons for this change, but one of the more fun reasons is the ability to use a tool like Jaeger. Jaeger is a distributed tracing tool, useful for seeing how your APIs and services all work together to process one request. A lot of the initial setup of this infrastructure was performed by our wonderful SRE team.
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→ 10:26 AM, Jun 10 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

New WiT Steering Committee

SPS WiT is proud to announce a new steering committee! Thank you to outgoing members, Annie Greenawalt and Megan Tischler for their leadership. It has been exciting to see your passion shine during your time in this role. Congratulations and welcome to the next generation of leaders! We can’t wait to see what you bring to the team.

→ 4:01 PM, May 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Hosts GoMN this Wednesday, May 18 at 6pm

This Wednesday, May 18, at 6:00 pm, the GoMN Meetup is welcoming John Murphy who will present Debugging Go Programs in Kubernetes. A brief summary of the topic can be found here, where you can also register to attend! The event is sponsored by SPS Commerce, is BOTH in-person AND virtual, and everyone is welcome to join - this is a free event :).

→ 8:26 AM, May 16 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Hosts GoMN this Wednesday, April 20 at 6pm

This Wednesday, April 20, at 6:00 pm, the GoMN Meetup is welcoming Raj Auradkar who will present Dependency Injection and Mock-Based Testing. A brief summary of the topic can be found here, where you can also register to attend! The event is sponsored by SPS Commerce, is BOTH in-person AND virtual, and everyone is welcome to join - this is a free event :).

→ 12:19 PM, Apr 18 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

2022 Technology Internship Positions Now Open!

Our interns are the coolest bunch around, and we are looking forward to meeting the next round of incredible minds for our 2022 program. (Seriously, read about our team from last year and you will see! Goodbye Summer Interns) TeamSPS is hiring 11 interns for our summer 2022 internship program. You will work as part of our larger technology team of over 300 people around the globe. SPS internships are paid.
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→ 1:50 PM, Dec 8 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Plan, Plan & Prepare for the Unexpected: Cyber Week 2021

My husband, Joe, wanted to buy a tractor for over five years to use at our cabin to grade the mile-long road we maintain and to do other important and cool stuff that he assures me can only be done with a tractor. For over five years, he has researched, planned, and hunted for that perfect used tractor with low hours of use, at a price he liked. My only requirement was it had to be a John Deere…just because.
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→ 1:16 PM, Nov 26 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Peace of Mind & Two SPS Engineers Were the Big Winners at Hack The Gap:

Two of our Software Engineers from our Minneapolis office, Ana Knickerbocker (find her on Twitter too!) & Jenna Truong took part in a hackathon in October through Hack the Gap. We asked them to share a little about the hackathon and what they did. They were on a team of 4 individuals and their project ended up winning, aligning nicely with the SPS Value of Win Today, Win Tomorrow. 🎉🏆
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→ 2:56 PM, Nov 3 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Everyday Security with Eric Ebner

SPS Teach team members had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Eric Ebner, CEO of Protocol 46 on the importance of Everyday security at a recent internal ‘Know More to be More’ (KMTBM) event. During the event Eric highlighted the heightened increase in new cyberattacks during the pandemic, stemming from remote work. He mentioned four main points that will improve our home and personal cybersecurity. Social media companies collect their user’s information such as their location, associates and spending habits.
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→ 3:48 PM, Oct 28 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Happiest Hour with Jade Denson

This week at SPS we are preparing for our “Happiest Hour with Jade Denson” co-hosted by the Black Business Resource Group and Women in Tech, two groups working to increase awareness and conversation related to diversity and inclusion. Jade Denson, VP of Talent Initiatives with MNTech will share how she is not only blazing a path for herself as a leader in technology but insights into what led to her current position, along with roadblocks and adversities she met (and fearlessly conquered) along the way.
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→ 10:49 AM, Oct 20 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Emphasizes Security Awareness at Work and Home

As is custom for SPS, we participate in October National Cybersecurity Month. Each week during the month here at SPS is filled with a plethora of updated content which is distributed across multiple channels to reach every employee. Core concepts and emerging threats like ransomware are covered. New this year was an increased emphasis and focus on personal security. As our traditional office perimeter has been swapped for the familiarity of home, the lines between ‘personal security’ and ‘best security practices at work’ has also dissolved.
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→ 2:44 PM, Oct 15 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Cloud Cost as Just Another Metric

– “the old ways of managing infrastructure aren’t just ineffective in cloud; they’re irrelevant.” (Stormant and Fuller, 3). Think back to a time when provisioning a server meant waiting days, weeks, or even months for hardware to arrive, networking to be configured and base-level software to be installed. Nowadays, an engineer can whip up an image and plop it onto a Kubernetes cluster on the same day that they write their application code.
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→ 2:17 PM, Oct 7 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Think Like A Programmer with SPS Commerce (at camp!)

What do Girl Scouts, SPS Engineers, marshmallows, and sick dance moves have in common? You will find them all at the Girl Scouts of the River Valleys “Think Like A Programmer with SPS Commerce” this weekend! SPS Women in Tech (WiT) has partnered with GSRV to provide opportunities for girls in Kindergarten through 3rd grade to explore programming topics, and to get to know women working in STEM careers. We have been dancing, laughing, and learning together since 2019.
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→ 2:30 PM, Sep 30 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Working with Globally Distributed Teams - Building Trust (Task-Based & Relationship-Based)

Today, I’m going to continue my Growing Your Cultural Awareness in Business series, drawing on learnings from Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map. This post is the sixth in an eight-part series and will focus on the Trust scale in the Culture Map (task-based vs. relationship-based). Cognitive Trust & Affective Trust Before we dive into the trust scale, it’s worth quickly touching on the difference between cognitive & affective trust, as these impact our understanding of the trust scale:
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→ 2:01 PM, Sep 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Kubb Tournament

We have a lot of talents in #TeamSPS. Yesterday the Minneapolis Tech teams showed off some of those skills, from juggling, to photography at our Kubb Tournament. (You can read up on Kubb here.) Kubb is a lawn game that has been enjoyed on the SPS lawn for years, and we were happy to be back in each other’s company for some sunshine and competition. Teams arrived to the Turf Club at SPS Tower with anticipation of great tournament, and Jamie Thingelstad walked us through a Kubb overview.
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→ 2:11 PM, Sep 16 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Goodbye Summer Interns!

We say goodbye to our 2021 summer interns this week, and what a group of interns they were! At SPS, Interns integrate with teams and take on projects, drive change, and improve process. In our students, we see the work they take on and the people they learn from, truly spark passion as they begin their career journey. Technology interns not only learn coding practices, but they also learn about process that drive results.
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→ 7:41 AM, Aug 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

TeamSPS Supporting TechNova and uWaterloo

SPS is a sponsor for TechNova and its First Global Women+ in Tech Hackathon event on August 24-29. We partner with University of Waterloo for our co-op students/interns in Canada and are excited to not only sponsor this event, but also to provide judges, mentors, and a glimpse into the life of a Technology career. TechNova is a student-led organization aimed at creating a more gender-equitable future in technology. Our inaugural event is the University of Waterloo’s First Global Women+ in Tech Hackathon which aims to provide students with an end-to-end program to help accelerate their journeys in technology, wherever they might be!
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→ 8:44 AM, Aug 19 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS TechJam 2021

Last month the SPS Technology department held TechJam - the yearly SPS technology community-led event. This event is completely volunteer-led by a group of individual within the organization. The team creates the agenda, selects external speakers, sources cool swag for the participants, leads a multi-day long Hackathon, and organizes fun happy hours for our various locations and timezones. For the second year in a row, the organizers managed a follow-the-sun agenda featuring speakers around the world and timezone handoffs between locations.
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→ 11:59 AM, Aug 6 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Team SPS Representing at DevOps Days Minneapolis!

Big shout-out to Charlotte Countryman and Tim Olson for representing Team SPS Tech at DevOps Days, Minneapolis, discussing some of the internal tech community happenings at SPS. As mentioned in a prior post, we’ve been perennial sponsors of this event, as we see this organization as one that regularly invests in local Technology community building and maturing in our location. If you’re at DevOps Days in person, stop by to say hello to any one of our team members, on site!
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→ 11:48 AM, Jul 20 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

TeamSPS is Headed to DevOps Minneapolis!

Will we see you at DevOps Days Minneapolis later this month? SPS is once again sponsoring Minneapolis’ DevOpsDays event. We’ve been perennial sponsors as we see this organization as one that regularly invests in local Technology community building and maturing in our location. DevOpsDays gives voice to a diverse pool of talented engineers and elevates the need to communicate, break down silos, share pain and embrace opportunities to learn. Within the speaking track, there is a blend of cultural and technical talks that can range significantly.
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→ 1:42 PM, Jul 1 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Andre Burgaud Presents httpexpect at GoMN meetup this Wednseday!

This Wednesday, June 16, at 6:00 pm, the GoMN Meetup is welcoming SPS’s own Andre Burgaud who will present httpexpect - End-to-end HTTP and REST API testing for Go. A brief summary of the topic can be found below: httpexpect is a concise, declarative, and easy to use end-to-end HTTP and REST API testing for Go (golang). Basically, httpexpect is a set of chainable builders for HTTP requests and assertions for HTTP responses and payload, on top of net/http and several utility packages.
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→ 10:38 AM, Jun 14 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Welcome Summer 2021 Interns

The 2021 SPS Summer Internship program started this week! We have 18 interns in Minneapolis this summer that are working in Technology, Finance, Human Resources, and Marketing. Our interns come from diverse backgrounds, and are all going to be embedded with teams in the Minneapolis office. Some cool intern facts -14 of our 18 interns this summer are in our Technology Business Unit. -Tech has hosted interns for many years and has had the largest number of students each year since our official program started in 2016.
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→ 11:02 AM, Jun 9 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS Celebrates Pride Month for the first time in Company History!

The LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group at SPS, with support of Executive Sponsor Lynn Myhran and in collaboration with our HR/Marketing teams, is hosting the first official Pride Month at SPS this year! It is with great excitement that we are able to focus on the history of our community, the intersectionality of identities, and hear from voices of current LGBTQ+ employees! Pride month is a time to celebrate the joyous lives we live and remember how far LGBTQ+ rights have come.
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→ 9:36 AM, Jun 4 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS at Open Source North

SPS Commerce was a Platinum Sponsor for Open Source North this year, which took place on Thursday, May 20th. A crew from SPS, including Scott Brons, Megan Tischler, Cory Fleming, and Andre Burgaud shared what has made our Tech Community pratice successful. The SPS Tech Community is a self organizing group of individual contributors and managers across the entire technology organization at SPS Commerce. We receive support and financial backing from executive leadership.
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→ 2:43 PM, May 25 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

How to Give a Tech Talk - An Opportunity for our Team Members to Grow the Skills Needed to Present at Tech Conferences

We are currently preparing for our annual internal conference, Tech Jam! Each year, we have a multi-day event with a mixture of internal and external speakers to share, demo and generally help us to grow as a tech org. This is always one of our best times of year and an event that everyone looks forward to attending. Over the years, there’s been a great mixture of presenters across tech teams, across various levels of experience and also with varying levels of technical depth vs.
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→ 12:10 PM, May 20 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Professional Development Week

It’s Professional Development Week at SPS! This means we are able to take some time to pepper in great sessions to help each of us to intentionally grow and develop amidst everything else we’re doing to build amazing products and solutions. This week brings amazing talks about Listening Skills, Cultivating Curiousity, Resilience, Career Coaching, Mindfulness, and manager tracks with even more content. Teams across SPS are welcoming the opportunity to learn and grow together and it’s great to be able to do this along with our peers across other departments.
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→ 11:39 AM, May 12 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

MN Aspirations in Computing Hackathon Event

Amplifying partner events is one way that TeamSPS lives out our value of Give Back. We are proud supporters of the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing program and will welcome our MNAiC summer interns to the Minneapolis team at the beginning of June. This event is one more offering from the MN Tech community to support future technologists. We can’t wait to see these students solve some big problems! Bright Ideas Hackathon is an online event for women in Minnesota’s high schools and 2021 graduates.
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→ 4:10 PM, May 6 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Decision-Making Across Cultures: Top-Down vs Consensus-Based

Today, I’m going to continue my Growing Your Cultural Awareness in Business series, drawing on learnings from Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map. This post is the fifth in an eight-part series and will focus on the Decision Making scale in the Culture Map (top-down vs. consensus-based). The Deciding Scale: Top-down vs. Consensus-Based Top-Down Decision-Making: Decisions are made by individuals (usually the boss). Consensus-Based Decision-Making: Decisions are made in groups through unanimous agreement.
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→ 12:52 PM, May 4 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Introducing "nap": an unusual fix to a bewildering bug

In 2019, I sat wide-eyed in a presentation hall at KubeCon in San Diego. There I mustered all of my self-restraint to keep myself from leaping off my chair and yelling “Yes! I have seen this bug! And today I know I am not crazy!” In “The Gotchas of Zero-Downtime Traffic With Kubernetes,” Leigh Capili of Weaveworks gave an excellent presentation on some unexpected network issues in Kubernetes and their not-so-obvious solutions.
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→ 9:00 AM, Apr 29 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Open Source Guild

A few weeks ago, we told you about our SPS Guilds. The Open-Source Guild (OSG) was formed in 2020 with a two-fold goal of responsible Open Source Software (OSS) usage and giving back to the community through open source contribution and creation. Early on we realized this as a very large goal that we should drive toward this goal in an iterative fashion. As a group, we decided to initially focus on giving back to the tech community through OSS creation.
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→ 4:05 PM, Apr 27 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Ian Anderson, Software Engineering Manager

Hello, I’m here to listen and to amplify those with seldom heard voices. I’m here to acknowledge my privilege but will use it to lift those around me. A couple of years ago, I attended a MinneBar session on hiring. In that session, they talked about diversity in a way that stuck with me. When thinking about diversity, think about the voices that are missing from your team. I talked a little about this at our internal conference, TechJam, two years ago.
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→ 9:43 AM, Apr 22 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Alexandra Smith - On becoming a 1st-time mother during a Pandemic

On Friday, March 13th, 2020, I headed out to the 1029 in Northeast Minneapolis with my coworkers for what would (unknowingly) be our last Friday lunch outing of the year. I sat belly-up to the bar with a secret I had just shared with my manager (@Sonja Peterson) that morning – I was 8 weeks pregnant. As I sipped my water and listened to my friends chat about the coronavirus that was taking hold in the United States, I knew I wouldn’t be returning to work on Monday.
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→ 12:14 PM, Apr 15 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Be Bold, Break the Mold & SPS Commerce

Background During the academic year of 2020-2021, North Hennepin Community College is piloting a new program for women who are ‘one of few’ in the fields of Computer Science, Construction Management, and Pre-Engineering, and Criminal Justice: Be Bold Break the Mold: NHCC Women Succeed in Nontraditional Career Fields Be Bold – Break the Mold’s Mission is to support women students who have made a conscious choice to enter a career field that is challenging, engaging, in-demand/high wage, and not typical for their gender.
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→ 9:07 AM, Apr 13 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Liquibase Learnings and CICD

Liquibase is one of those technologies that I knew the name of at SPS Commerce well before I ever had cause to use it in my day-to-day work. For the unfamiliar, Liquibase is an application that interprets files and converts them to SQL. We use it at SPS Commerce to deploy and rollback changes to our databases. It was a bit of a mystery before I joined the database team, but for my team it is an invaluable tool.
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→ 3:02 PM, Apr 8 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Technology Guilds @SPS Commerce

Guilds are a self-organizing group of people with common interests. It is a natural forum for social interactions that build relationships which promote cooperation, cohesion, and productivity. Guilds provide a horizontal communication layer across our Technology teams on a wide variety of topics. Our analysts, engineers, managers, and other staff use them to learn, share, grow, and to promote education through experiential learning. This collective action benefits the guild members, their craft, and our organization.
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→ 11:45 AM, Apr 7 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Reading The Water: Phishing Training at SPS Commerce

Picture this: it’s 2007. A very wealthy prince desperately wants to gift you a portion of his inheritance. But you (heartless you) ignore him, moving his email to your spam folder. Fast forward a couple of years, and the prince has changed. Our prince goes by a new name now, maybe Microsoft Outlook, Dropbox, or perhaps your very own employer. This time our ‘friend’ has no fortune to give, but your data is still on his mind.
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→ 9:06 AM, Mar 25 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Transformation at Scale

When companies recognize the need to scale their team-based agility methodologies it’s easy to forget that the same principles that apply to growing its business apply to how it gets that work done. This may sound obvious but it’s still an easy trap to fall into that an out-of-the-box framework will solve all ways of working challenges. This would be like saying that all a successful startup needs to get off the ground is a great idea.
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→ 8:40 AM, Mar 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Maddie Sandish, Software Engineer

I’m Here. As a three-time software engineer intern at SPS Commerce, I’ve had the unique opportunity of experiencing three unique relationships with my embodied identity and SPS’s culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion as both have evolved over the past few years. That first summer, I was here navigating the inbetweens of emerging adulthood and a new professional environment at the same time as I was questioning if and how I could occupy this space as a queer person.
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→ 10:24 AM, Mar 19 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Brython: Python in Your Browser

Our very own Andre Burgaud recently published an article with Real Python sharing a tutorial on how to leverage Brython for web development (that’s right, Python in your browser!). Check out his article for a very in-depth analysis and tutorial! Brython: Python in Your Browser

→ 10:44 AM, Mar 16 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Leading Across Cultures (Hierarchical vs. Egalitarian Leadership)

Today, I’m going to continue my Growing Your Cultural Awareness in Business series, drawing on learnings from Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map. This post is the fourth in an eight-part series and will focus on the Leadership scale in the Culture Map (egalitarian vs. hierarchical). Power Distance & Leading In the 1970s Geert Hofstede coined the term “power distance”, which refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.
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→ 10:42 AM, Mar 11 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Wrapping up SPS Tech Summit - A Big THANK YOU!

Yesterday we closed out our 2021 Tech Summit event. As discussed in our last post, the Tech Summit is an event where we intentionally set our ‘day jobs’ aside to learn more about the strategic vision of our entire technology organization for the coming year. Over these past four days, we have covered some serious ground with some major topics. Each day had its own focus, outlined below: This event included four General (‘Keynote’) Sessions along with nearly 20 Breakout Sessions!
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→ 4:12 PM, Mar 4 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Virtual SPS Tech Summit Kickoff

I believe the workplace culture is to SPS what our personalities are to us. It’s what makes us unique. Our unique culture is derived from the operationalization of our values and the people who live them. The Tech teams at SPS and the culture that surrounds us comprises a community for me. We are heterogeneous and inclusive, share common values and beliefs and have common objectives. We are empathetic and desire the best outcomes for one another.
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→ 9:26 AM, Mar 1 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

The Softer Side of Agile

Far too often when issues arise within our teams, we default to blaming the current methodology or tools we are using and propose a new process or tool to use instead. Many times, after another process or tool change, our teams are still dealing with the same issues. This is when, I suggest, that we all take a step back and ask ourselves “why” (_I recommend using the 5 Whys - Root Cause Analysis_).
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→ 10:30 AM, Feb 25 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Gordy Flam

Consider this: When people all think the same way, they rarely challenge each other to think outside the box. Companies often have programs to encourage innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. It is safe to assume that most companies are looking to innovate, grow in market share and grow in revenue. To achieve imaginative, creative ideas, companies in the tech industry are more likely to achieve these goals if they are working with people from many different backgrounds.
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→ 11:48 AM, Feb 23 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Happy 20th Anniversary to the Agile Manifesto!

I’m feeling exhilarated, recharged, and inspired after attending the Scrum Alliance panel sessions last week, observing the #AgileManifesto20thAnniversary. The free virtual conference was an excellent opportunity to learn, connect with the Agile community across the globe, reflect on how much has changed since the Agile Manifesto was written, and dream about what our future holds. There were 3 panel sessions throughout the day that focused on the past, present, and future of Agile.
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→ 10:28 AM, Feb 16 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Feature Flags & Scaling with Microservices

Our very own Travis Gosselin presented at the DevOps Underground London online meetup last month! Check out his presentation on “Feature Flags & Scaling with Microservices”:

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→ 3:12 PM, Feb 11 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Jon Beattie

I’m here first and foremost in my home. And that’s not just because we’ve all been working from home since mid-March, 2020. First and foremost in life, I’m a husband and a father. I have an almost 7-year-old daughter, a nearly 4-year-old son & a 9-month-old daughter. Like any other parent, I want to see the best possible future for all of my children. It’s not an option for me to continue to propagate privilege solely to other white males like myself.
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→ 9:33 AM, Feb 10 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Black History Month at SPS

SPS Comemerce kicked off our Black History month activities today by hosting an event for our global teams. After a compelling presentation from Dr. Yohuru Williams, we broke off into small groups to work through discussion questions. Many of the small groups were led by our Tech leaders, who helped drive conversation around personal “I will” statements, and the commitment we all are making to dismantling systemic racism. Small groups shared how they will turn their awareness and understanding into action.
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→ 3:28 PM, Feb 3 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

SPS team members share their learnings from the Grace Hopper Celebration

SPS WiT (Women in Tech) sent members of our Technology team to join the other 30,000 attendees at the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration in 2020. This group took their experience one step further by sharing back what they learned with the rest of our teams at a recent Meetup. Takeaways were shared on these key topics from talks attended at GHC: Transform your code reviews (Macy Buan) Testing growing pains (Madeline Finnerty) Accessible technology (Jessica Lee) Advances in AI (Charlotte Countryman) The group also shared many significant learnings regarding the future impact of Technology on:
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→ 12:05 PM, Jan 26 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Many Things By Season Season'd Are

It’s that PI planning time of year again. We race to wrap up our releases - deploy…deploy…fix the dependency…does it work? We try to wrap up our planning before we start planning despite the fact that we will never be 100% planned. We reflect on what we’ve accomplished and celebrate as if just to set up the question, “how could it have been better?” As many of us in Tech just underwent this quarterly exercise, it is a great opportunity to refresh why we do it and how we can lean in.
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→ 3:53 PM, Jan 21 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Maddie Sandish was a three time returning intern this past summer, participating in our first-ever All-Virtual internship program. Since then, Maddie has stayed on with the team as a part-time engineer, all the while attending Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. They shared with teams last fall at one of our internal Tech Meetups about a topic that not only resonated with our teams but also opened a door to greater understanding.
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→ 5:03 PM, Jan 19 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Wrapping up the First PI Planning of 2021

The first Program Increment Planning event of 2021 is wrapping up. Teams spent this week joining together (virtually) to work through planning, identify dependencies, and align on goals. Well done everyone! It’s incredible to watch so many of our teams come together. #GetAfterIt #SucceedTogether

→ 10:26 AM, Jan 15 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Persuasion & Reasoning Across Cultures

Today, I’m going to continue my Growing Your Cultural Awareness in Business series, drawing on learnings from Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map. This post is the third in an eight-part series and will focus on the Persuading scale in the Culture Map (inductive vs. deductive persuasion). Some of this content is either directly taken from, or is a summary of, Chapter 3 of The Culture Map, with my own examples and perspective added for clarity.
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→ 12:12 PM, Jan 7 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Interview with Jamie Thingelstad

Kicking off 2021 by sharing this interview that Jamie Thingelstad, Chief Technology Officer, Sr. VP did with the team at Tech.mn. Enjoy!

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→ 10:58 AM, Jan 4 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Closing out 2020 with Gratitude

Cultivating gratitude can be a difficult task, especially in a year like 2020. As we reflect on the past year and look forward to the new one, it’s only appropriate to celebrate and express our gratitude for two team members who have been with us for 20 years. We celebrated each of them at our annual company meeting in November, and want to congratulate them on their journeys here as well.
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→ 9:51 AM, Dec 31 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Our First Annual SPS Tech Holiday Concert – A Success!

On December 22, we hosted our first annual SPS Tech Holiday Concert! Ten team members shared their musical talents in an hour-long event over Zoom for all of us to enjoy. The idea started with one team and then grew to include all of tech because we realized that there are so many technologists who are also musicians. This fun concert included holiday pieces performed on the violin, mandolin, cello, piano, trumpet, flute, theremin, and a couple of vocal performances as well.
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→ 12:42 PM, Dec 29 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

The Origin of Carol of the Bells

Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say, throw cares away Christmas is here… Christmas is coming and again we hear Christmas songs and carols everywhere. Many people remember “Carol of the Bells” from their childhood but not many people are aware of the origin of the tune. Being a global company, with a large tech presence in Kyiv, Ukraine, we have a little bit of insight to share here :) The song “Carol of the Bells” actually originated in Ukraine.
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→ 2:03 PM, Dec 22 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

WiT Hosts Coded Bias Watch Party for Team SPS Tech

The SPS WiT (Women in Technology) group provided the opportunity for our teams to have early access to documentary Coded Bias and participate in a discussion together. Eyes were opened and we are committed to continuing the conversation regarding our own experiences with bias, and making sure we are paying attention to our unintentional contributions in these areas too.

→ 12:08 PM, Dec 15 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Boolean Blindness: Using domain modeling to make your code bug free

December 3rd at 5:30PM ET our Software Engineering & Cloud Meetup is excited to have Michael Gold, SPS Lead Software Engineer, share techniques for domain modelling. Please make plans to join us!

→ 1:37 PM, Dec 2 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Dan Juckniess, Sales SVP , dropped into one of our team stand-ups today to provide his support and encouragement. We love seeing our partners across SPS showing up to share the love with the team as we ramp up Cyberweek. We are feeling all the SPS Value feels: Succeed Together, Get After It, and Win Today, Win Tomorrow! 🙌
→ 3:38 PM, Nov 30 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Dennis Cunningham, Tech Trainer

I’m here. I am here as a Black Gay man at SPS. I am here to support and encourage other People of Color and LGBTQIA people to speak up, earn, and demand your place at the table. I am here to help make a change and help myself and SPS grow. I am here to encourage Black, LGBTQIA, and People of Color to understand their worth and not to shy away from it.
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→ 5:00 PM, Nov 24 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Our most recent Tech All Hands, presented as a live radio show, included a cameo from “DJ Thingles,” team and individual recognition, snapshots from our home offices, and commercials for our 2021 plans. We continue to find innovative ways to deliver and this meeting was a delivery full of excitement for what the next year will bring!
→ 3:04 PM, Nov 19 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Today our SPS teams pause and get a chance to come together as 1 TeamSPS at our Growth Summit to reflect on the year and look forward to our plans for 2021. It’s been a wild 2020 across the world, and we are so grateful to stop, look around and take in all the wins, and appreciate our TeamSPS.
→ 9:59 AM, Nov 10 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Tomorrow night! QuintessenceAnx, a Developer Advocate from Pager Duty is talking problem-solving, normalizing minorities in Tech, and being a better ally. Check it out: Unquantified Serendipity: Diversity in Development #meetup #inclusionmatters
→ 3:45 PM, Nov 4 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Guilds to Learn, Share, Grow, and Sometimes Just for Fun

Here at SPS Tech, we have various Guilds that have been formed by our team members. Guilds are a self-organizing group of people with common interests. It is a natural forum for social interactions that build relationships that, in turn, promote cooperation, cohesion, and productivity. Our engineers, testers, and other staff use Guilds to learn, share, grow, and sometimes, just to have fun together with people sharing common interests. Just some of the guilds at SPS Tech:
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→ 1:55 PM, Oct 28 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Secrets of Tech: How to Interview Like a Badass

Yesterday we reconnected with old friends and met some new ones at our event “Secrets of Tech: How to Interview Like a Badass” presented by the SPS Women in Technology group. During this virtual event, representatives from our human resources, technology, and intern recruiting teams provided a behind-the-scenes look at what happens throughout the interview process including the technical evaluation process. The goal was to help intern and early-career candidates learn how to bring their best self to the table!
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→ 10:36 AM, Oct 22 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

I'm Here: Randi Myhre

Hi, everyone! I’m Randi. I’m the acting HR Business Partner for Technology (my other job is in recruiting, but I’m engaged in this temporary assignment for a bit). I’m here. I’m here as someone who cares about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I’m here because I believe people are at their best when they can express themselves and be heard. I’m here because I believe that many of us need to get better about having authentic conversations.
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→ 8:48 AM, Oct 20 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Another shining star intern from our first ever virtual internship program, Shravya Gade, shared her knowledge with our teams at a recent Tech Meetup. In this video clip, “Managing Metadata in a Distributed Workspace” Software Engineering Intern Shravya explains the fine line between trustful systems and utter chaos.
→ 2:28 PM, Oct 6 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Our very own Tim Van Cleave shares his experience being a CodeDay Labs mentor during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Check out his blog article published on the CodeDay blog space, Finding Your Place in Technology with CodeDay Labs.
→ 10:51 AM, Sep 24 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

How SPS Gave Me the Opportunity to Study Trees

Grace Hansen was a returning summer intern who first joined SPS as an Aspirations in Computing intern in 2018. She is now headed off to her Sophomore at the University of Minnesota and finished out her internship this summer with a presentation at our monthly Tech Meetup. Enjoy watching and learning from Grace with How SPS Gave Me the Opportunity to Study Trees.

→ 8:01 AM, Sep 11 by SPS Technology (@spstech)

Reflections from an SPS Summer Engineering Intern

SPS hosted 13 virtual interns over the summer, and we wanted to share their reflections as the summer draws to an end. Here is Breanne Pundsack, Software Engineer Intern, and MN Aspirations in Computing Awardee. I have had such a wonderful experience being a Software Engineer Intern this summer at SPS. I was able to work on a team that primarily builds tools for other internal teams. I worked on two of those tools this summer: Pointdexter and Trinity.
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→ 12:34 PM, Aug 19 by SPS Technology (@spstech)