#WorkItWednesday featuring Scott Fedorov, Backend Software Engineer

‍Welcome to #WorkItWednesday, Grindr's feature on employees and programs at the heart of the work we do to connect the global queer community.

Meet Scott David Fedorov, Backend Software Engineer at Grindr! Scott has been at Grindr since November 2021. Before that, he was an Applications Engineer for four years working on a business-to-business Smart Metering platform. Scott lives in the Chicago suburbs, and while the company does have an office in the city - he enjoys getting to write this article from the comfort of his couch under a warm blanket since we are a remote-first company!

Check out Scott’s Grindr story below, and take a look at our careers page to learn more about our open job opportunities.

What led you to become a Backend Engineer with Grindr?

I actually started my career in radio, doing promotions, marketing, and some on-air work. I was always more tech-minded, though, and went to college for Electrical Engineering. For a while after school, I worked for power companies, where I then started to get more into software engineering. A slew of hobby projects, online classes, and YouTube videos later - and here I am as a software developer.

All that to say, my path here has been long and winding. I don't have a "traditional" software engineering background, just passion and some experience. I’m no expert, but I was lucky to find Grindr, which recognized that while experience is necessary, passion for a company can be a great complement to skills in the role. They took a chance on me and it has been a great experience. The team has been phenomenal and is very good at what they do. Not only have they welcomed me with open arms, but they have also become fantastic mentors and colleagues in short order.

Tell us why you joined Grindr. What do you love most about our mission and our culture?

When I applied to Grindr, I wasn’t actively looking for new work, but I saw a job posting that just seemed like a great fit for me and so I went for it. Kind of a long-shot, “can you imagine?!” dream-job kind of thing. I’ve been a user of Grindr since the early days. I met my husband and a lot of my very best friends through Grindr. It’s an amazing app with millions of daily active users. It is still surreal to work for a company I see casually mentioned on TV and in movies.

I’ve heard a lot of people refer to Grindr as a “hook-up app”, and sure, that obviously happens but it's also so much more. We’re all about connecting users with others in the community and we are constantly finding ways to make the user experience better and more inclusive. We’re not the only app in the space, but in my opinion, we’re the best app. We are the app with the most users in the space. The employees here care A LOT about the community and I’m truly impressed with how much attention is paid to making sure that what we do is positive for the space, not just driven by revenue.

…and we get to have a lot of fun here. Some of the conversations I get to have with colleagues, I could never imagine having at previous companies!

What interesting problems is your Grindr team solving and what are you looking forward to for the future?

Grindr has been around for a while. There's a lot of legacy code here, but most of the team is new. This brings a fresh perspective to the tech stack and the entire code base is being systematically replaced with newer, faster, more secure, and reliable versions. At the same time, we're working on a slew of new features that as a personal user, I am excited for and can't wait for the community to get to experience (like Albums!).

Grindr is working on more ways to better connect people in our community. The app has always been very location-centric and will continue to be. We're developing more ways to connect our users to the communities they live and work in. The adoption rate for the new tags feature has been amazing and is the first step toward helping our users search for other people with similar interests. And the list of available tags is always growing!

What has growth been like for the team?

The team is growing quickly, but Grindr is actually run by a relatively small team, especially compared to the number of users we serve. The company headcount grew by 40% last year and the backend team alone is expected to grow significantly throughout 2022. All this growth and change makes Grindr feel like a start-up at times and it’s such an exciting time to be here. The culture is amazing. I used to roll my eyes at people who talked about how important company culture is. But it wasn’t until I started working here that I really understood what they meant. It’s different. You can feel it.

If you are interested in working for an organization that is a champion of the LGBTQ+ community while getting to develop interesting tech solutions - you should apply today!‍