Happy 2025! I thought I’d post a little about what I’ve been up to lately.
Work
I’m still at Braintree (PayPal). My title is MTS-2 Software Engineer. MTS is short for Member of Technical Staff. I think most companies call this “Staff Engineer”. So I would be a Staff Engineer II.
My role is Tech Lead for the Cards Settlement team. Tech Lead means I’m not a people manager, but I am the most experienced engineer on the team. PayPal has dual tracks for moving up – a manager track and a technical track.
I work with our Engineering Manager and Product Manager to help plan what the team is going to build. This involves estimating work, documenting features, and writing a ton of JIRA cards. I also review pull requests, mentor other engineers, and still write some code.
Education
I’ve been thinking on and off about getting a Masters Degree for years now. PayPal offers some tuition reimbursement, so it wouldn’t cost too much. But it is a serious time commitment.
As of last summer I guess you could say I took the leap. I enrolled in the Ball State University Online Master of Science in Data Science. This is an online program through Coursera. I started with one class last summer (Intro to Programming) to see what is like and it was really good.
I took two classes in the fall – Intro to Data Science and Data Visualization. And I’m taking two more classes this semester – Foundations of Data Analysis and Statistical Methods for Data Science.
Each week there are a few hours of video lessons and some required reading. There are also graded tests and labs. At the end of the semester there will be a final and / or a project.
This is all entirely online and asynchronous, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I spend at least an hour a day after work learning and even more on the weekends. It’s hard, but I’m truly learning. I’ve always believed in continuous improvement.
Personal
I’m keeping busy with work and school, but we did have a great summer. Another perk at PayPal is the one-month sabbatical every five years. Last year was my fifth year.
I’ve never taken a month off of work in my life. Even when I change jobs I like to leave one on Friday and start the new one on Monday. I was honestly a little nervous at first, but it was great.
We’ve always wanted to go to Italy, so we did. We spent a week in Rome and week in Florence. It was amazing. We didn’t rush through everything. We saw our share of touristy sights, but we also spent time relaxing and exploring.
We stopped off in Dublin on the way back home and spent a week there, too. We took a bus to Northern Ireland and visited a castle and the Giant’s Causeway. We went to a jewelry making class and everyone made a silver ring.
It was an amazing trip and I can’t wait for out next adventure.
Future
At my current pace I should finish my degree in May 2026. I’m not sure exactly what that will mean for my job. Maybe nothing. But I’ll bet I could pivot into another position or at least move up in my current role.
We’ve always talked about moving somewhere northeast – a blue state. I see that in our future when the kids graduate. My next sabbatical lines up with that day perfectly. Maybe we’ll spend that month moving.
Now, I’ll get back to posting geeky stuff. As I progress in my degree there might be more about R or Python programming. There will probably also be more about AI and machine learning. The future looks bright.