A Day in the Engineering Development Group, UK Edition

The Engineering Development Group (EDG) at MathWorks allows you to really tailor your journey to your goals. I was interested in a leadership position, so once I gained some tenure I jumped at the opportunity to become a group lead for one of our support teams in the Cambridge, UK, office.

Here’s a typical day during my learning phase of leading the support team:

9:00 a.m. I arrive at the office, grab a cup of coffee, and settle in. Part of the group leader ramp-up involves having a look at all the open cases and pretending I am already doing the role. What would I do with these cases? The first case requires some simple troubleshooting steps, so I leave an internal technical note explaining how to proceed. The next case is missing a license number. Without this we can’t help the customer, so the group leader’s job is to send a follow-up email. I make a note of this in the ramp-up group chat (a great way for pairing up with more senior team members).

9:30 a.m. Time for our daily team meeting. The current group leader reviews the open cases and makes recommendations. Someone gives a short presentation about a recent project they did, which is always interesting. Somebody else is dealing with a particularly tricky customer issue, and we brainstorm possible solutions together. One of the managers chimes in with advice, and as a team we determine next steps.

10:00 a.m. Coffee break with some of the team.

10:15 a.m. I check the cases I am currently working on. Have any of my customers replied to me? One gave a very helpful reply with detailed answers to all of my questions. It is always nice when this happens. The crash logs they provided show me the OS they are using, which narrows things down considerably. I have a look through our internal database of problems customers have encountered and how we resolved them. I find a bug report describing what seems to be an identical crash. The report also provides a workaround, which I suggest to the customer.

11:00 a.m. Remember the internal database of customer problems I mentioned before? This information is compiled by us. Anytime we encounter a new problem, particularly one that requires us to reach out to a developer for help, we capture the details. I had an interesting case in which the resolution hinged on a surprise instance of lexicographical ordering, and I attempt to summarize the resolution in a helpful way for whoever might come across the same issue next. The most difficult part is the title—what keywords should I use so people can find this article when they need it?

Noon All my current cases are waiting on action from other people, so I choose a new case to work on that’s related to an upcoming project.

1:00 p.m. Lunchtime! A few times a week, we get catered lunch at the office. Today, there is a food truck. I pick up a Halloumi wrap and sit down with some other EDGers in the kitchen. A spirited debate about the relative merits and demerits of different pubs in the area ensues. After I finish eating, I take a walk around the Cambridge Science Park for some sunshine and fresh air.

2:00 p.m. I have a meeting with a manager to discuss the details of a proposed technical project to create a new deep learning documentation example. By the time you read this, there is a good chance the example will be up on the MathWorks website!

2:30 p.m. It is summer, and that means we have summer interns. I volunteered to be an “intern buddy” this year. This involves a weekly check-in with my group of seven interns (and our manager). Since this meeting is taking place in half an hour, I prepare some questions. Getting seven students to talk candidly about the past week’s challenges when facing more senior colleagues needs some thought, so I try to come up with a few fresh ideas.

3:00 p.m. It’s meeting time. I decide to hold the meeting in the kitchen, which has large windows and coffee machines (my theory: sunlight + caffeine = productivity). The more informal atmosphere works better than my prepared questions to get conversation going. Intern projects are always so interesting to me. There are many parallels between EDG projects and intern projects.

4:00 p.m. I have another meeting, this time with the other two intern buddies. The goal is to plan an event for the interns to teach them about use cases and pitfalls of ChatGPT. We decide to each come up with an exercise for the interns to complete and then discuss what prompts work. (Note from future me: This approach worked great, and we had an excellent time.)

5:00 p.m. The customer from earlier replies—the one to whom I suggested a workaround. The workaround worked, and her code is no longer crashing. It is always rewarding to receive positive customer feedback.

5:30 p.m. Time to go home!