This Meet the Trulian features Zane Williamson, senior devops engineer at Trulia. Zane has worked as an engineer for his entire career and joined Trulia in 2015. Read on to learn more about him.
What’s your role at Trulia?
I am a senior devops engineer on Trulia’s Platform Team. The Platform Team is responsible for providing automation and infrastructure to our product development teams to leverage. We look to improve developer productivity through our platform. I build tooling and automation for provisioning of systems and processes. I work a lot with software programs like Terraform, Python, and Kubernetes (k8s) on a daily basis. The work I do makes it so that our teams can move faster and scale to new levels.
What inspired you to get into your role?
I love building systems and coding solutions to problems! In my current role, I work with many different engineers across Trulia and Zillow Group. At the heart of it, I am a people person, so I am fortunate that this role also gives me the ability to connect with a lot of characters at Trulia.
What was your dream job growing up and why?
My dream job growing up was working with AutoCAD, which is a program that is used to create engineering drafts and schematics on a computer. I was really interested in drawing and sketching as a kid, and AutoCAD bridged my love of drawing with computers. I was able to branch into a career involving technology by becoming a system administrator at a data center. From there, I was able to quickly learn and expand on my knowledge and creativity into other computing fields requiring system engineering and coding.
If you could have drinks with one tech luminary – dead or alive – whom would it be and why? And, what would your first question be?
I’d love to meet Elon Musk because he builds on my boyhood space fantasies! My first question to him would be: when can you send me to Mars?
What’s the one gadget or personal tech item you cannot live without and why?
A Leatherman Juice multi tool because it helps me solve a lot of problems, both tech and non-tech related.
What was the last movie you saw or book you read and what –if anything – would you change about the ending?
Heritage, which is a movie about a family who suffers from some very scary heritage issues they are not aware of. It reminds me very much of The Shining. I wouldn’t change the ending because it served its purpose of raising the hair on my neck and making it hard to sleep after watching it. It was bone chilling.
What’s your proudest accomplishment and why?
One of my proudest accomplishments was watching my daughter go from pre-ballet to level 6 at the San Francisco Ballet School! I live vicariously through her accomplishments.
If you could master one talent or skill that you don’t have now what would it be and why?
Horticulture expert. I love plants and want to be able to identify all of them and know how to provide the perfect care for each species. I have so many in my home now, like a banana plant and fiddle leaf fig. Plants provide the ideal air filter system for a home in San Francisco!
If you could have one superpower what would it be and why?
I’d want the power to fly because it would be a never-ending source of exhilaration at my fingertips. The first place I would fly would be straight up into the sky until it became hard to breathe. Then I would skydive down. This would allow me to test the height limits of my newly found power.
If you could time travel, would you go into the future or past and why?
I would go into the past to see the dinosaurs! As a kid I had a healthy obsession with these creatures. Maybe I could bring Chris Pratt with me from Jurassic Park, and we could hang out!
