Scrum Master Cloud Content Services at Fabasoft
My name is Rainer and I’m the scrum master of the Cloud Content Services team. For us, everything revolves around content. Any work you do on documents and media files in the Fabasoft Business Process Cloud involves our code. But let’s take things one step at a time. Join me as I go through my workday with the help of the letters that spell FABASOFT!
F stands for “Fresh start in the Fabateria”
Since I commute to work, I always park in the underground parking garage and arrive at the Fabasoft headquarters dry and stress-free. Once there, I go to the “Fabateria,” where a lavish breakfast buffet awaits me. I use my morning breakfast time to settle in and get ready for the day’s tasks. Oftentimes I have conversations with people from other departments. After that, I head over to the team office.
A stands for “Action”
Once I arrive there, I’m greeted by a handful of e-mails, the calendar, and my team members. I start by planning out the day. In terms of organization, this includes preparing for and attending meetings and answering questions we’ve received from stakeholders. This is followed by an initial look at any potential issues and problems that may have been reported. Apart from that, I’ll often test some of the ideas that came to me overnight about ways to move the needle on my current tasks.
By then it’s 09:30 a.m. and time for our “daily scrum,” where we share the latest updates about our tasks. After that, it’s on to the development work – either individually or in pairs, depending on how we’ve arranged things.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the development work we focus on is in the area of content. We choose the programming language based on its advantages relative to the specific task at hand. Our choices range from the old-school classics like Java and C++ to TypeScript/Node.js, as well as our own development platform “app.ducx.” Having our own platform means that we can integrate the functionality into the Fabasoft Business Process Cloud quickly, while the diversity of programming languages means that we can draw on specialized third-party libraries. These components run in the form of microservices within containers.
B stands for “Breaking for lunch”
At lunchtime we take a break, get outside a bit, and recharge with some fresh air. Since the office is so centrally located, there are plenty of options for grabbing a quick lunch. A lot of times we eat it in one of the nearby parks like the Donaulände, which is right on the banks of the Danube. Sometimes in the summer we have a barbecue on the rooftop terrace of the “Fabateria.”
A stands for “Agile in the afternoon”
Occasionally we hold afternoon meetings to coordinate input on cross-team features. I also reserve blocks of time in the afternoon for doing things like analyzing questions about our products in more detail in order to reinforce buyer confidence. Frequently, a conversation we’ve had during the lunch break leads to ideas that we can work out by getting a second pair of eyes on the specific issue and collaborating in pairs.
Even though all our work falls within the – admittedly quite broad – area of “content,” the sheer diversity among the users who utilize our functionality in the various cloud apps keeps everything fresh and interesting. We focus on things like collaborative document editing, digital signatures, image processing, text recognition, and metadata extraction, to name just a few examples.
From a technical point of view, the work is just as varied: At Fabasoft, technical innovation joins forces with a sophisticated, cloud-based enterprise platform used by a wide range of businesses and government agencies. As a result, we need to fulfill criteria regarding data security, dependability, and performance. We achieve that with the help of our in-house products, app.test and app.telemetry. Since Fabasoft operates the cloud infrastructure independently for data privacy reasons, the question of how the cloud-native functions we offer can be scaled and maintain their high level of availability is also particularly relevant. These are my personal favorite subjects right now, too. More specifically, I’m looking at how to make these services “reactive.”
All in all, working on the Fabasoft platform never gets boring thanks to the wide variety of subject areas and the strong tech focus.
S for “Spare time”
At the end of my workday, I make sure that I’ve finished the tasks I had planned and also make a note of any new topics that have come up. Those things lay the groundwork for what I’ll be sharing at tomorrow’s daily scrum. After that, work is all wrapped up for the day and the evening can begin. And maybe that will also include Fabasoft: We regularly organize group activities like movie nights or go-karting.
Now you’re probably left wondering what the remaining letters stand for. They can OFTen stand for something different every day, since there’s actually no such thing as a “typical day” at Fabasoft, although there are some constants: Optimization. Flexibility. Teamwork.
