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Get to know some of Revel's best and brightest in our recurring “People POS” question and answer series. Our more recent spotlight featured Bac Dinh Cong, an API support engineer with a passion for problem solving.
Up next, Revel’s Marketing Communications Manager Julie Standridge sat down with Seth Kessel, a Revel scrum master, for a Q&A session to learn more about how his technical background and people-first mentality make him the perfect fit for the role. Continue reading for a chance to better understand the scrum master role at Revel and how Seth supports our development team.
(Q): Hi Seth! Thanks for chatting with me today. To start, can you tell me a bit more about what you do here at Revel and what led you to take this role?
(A): Sure thing. I’m a scrum master and agile coach and I joined Revel about a year and a half ago in March of 2021.
I got my undergraduate degree in management information systems (MIS) at Georgia College & State University, and later got my masters degree in the same discipline at Georgia College. MIS was the right degree for me because it bridges the gap between IT and business. I’ve always been a fairly social and talkative person, but I also enjoy being pretty technical.
That mindset led me to take my first role in Atlanta working as a product owner, scrum master, and project manager at a big point of sale (POS) company in Atlanta. While it was a great introduction to the field, I found myself lacking work-life balance, sometimes working 65+ hour work weeks. I later took a role at Revel where I found the best of both worlds: work-life balance and interesting work.
(Q): Well, I’m glad you landed at Revel! In your opinion, what makes Revel a great place to work?
(A): Work-life balance is a huge thing for me. In my previous role I was working 65+ hours a week. At Revel, I work a really consistent schedule. Culture-wise, the way I like to think of it is that there hasn’t been a single person I’ve met that I wouldn’t grab a beer with after work. Everyone is super nice and open to taking questions. From a scrum master perspective, people are really open, and I think that’s what keeps people here.
(Q): What does it mean to be a scrum master?
(A): To take a step back and explain scrum in a bit more detail, it’s essentially the process management of developers. The role helps make sure there’s a structure to how developers receive work and do their work.
A lot of my role is advocating for my team and doing a lot of communication management. Generally a scrum master is facilitating process management and scrum work, but both of my teams are very good at those. What it really comes down to is managing relationships and assisting with change management. I don’t manage people as much as I manage the process in which they work.
My mantra is certainly not “do this code this way.” Instead, I help my teammates be more efficient. Scrum at Revel is flexible, which is nice. There’s no top-down process that says you have to manage your team a certain way. I pick and choose parts of the scrum that I want to be a stickler about, and my team and I adapt as we go.
(Q): How do you and your team work together to meet Revel’s development goals?
(A): There are over 15 scrum masters at Revel. We get assigned teams and generally, the umbrella for the team is the product owner. The product owner’s job is to partially filter some of the work that comes in, and the scrum master will calculate capacity. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of my time is spent being a shield for the team and managing requests.
(Q): At Revel, we are always focused on the quality of our development work and releases. In the short time you’ve been at Revel, how have you watched the team evolve to continually put out great development work?
(A): The continuous strides I see are definitely in performance. The teams I get to support help bring some really fantastic products and fixes to our clients, and it takes top-performers to do that.
For example, team Inception has been hard at work on micro-frontend enablement and management console enablement for some time now. Team Lucid Dream Machine has deployed several different pieces of development work that are customer-facing notification wins.
Both teams mentioned are now working on fairly major initiatives. AppSync is a big undertaking, and then they’re going to be focused on the next generation of the connected kitchen, something Revel already does very well. These projects that directly impact Revel’s clients are really exciting for the developers.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering where the unique team names come from, the teams get to name themselves. They’re creative!
(Q): We now have a great sense for what your role is like here at Revel, but what do you enjoy doing in your free time when you’re not helping to shape the next generation of products at Revel?
(A): I’m a self-proclaimed super nerd. I get really into music critic stuff—I often find myself diving into YouTube videos on various music topics. I also like to run and I used to rock climb competitively. Camping, offroading and grilling round out the list of my favorite hobbies. I like being active!
A big thanks goes to Seth for participating in our “People POS” blog series. It’s always a pleasure getting to know the ins and outs of our colleagues’ complex roles.
If you’re interested in a role within Revel’s product engineering department—one that may even cross paths with Seth—don’t hesitate to browse our careers page and apply if you think you might be a great fit.
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