Friday, May 16, 2014

Welcome to Jack, Scott, Jaleh, Sean, Rich, Zean, Matt, Will, & Lisa!

We’re very excited to welcome nine amazing people to the reddit team. As is the reddit tradition, we ask that each of the new admins introduce themselves to you in their own words:

Jack Lawson (/u/ajacksified), frontend engineer
Hello, redditors! I’m super excited to finally join reddit in San Francisco, after many years participating in the community. I’ll be working on improving the interface, adding features, and improving our frontend infrastructure so we can continue to be reliable and fast at the first two items. Besides writing javascript, I like to dabble in a variety of other languages, and I co-run the Lua and Vim meetup groups in San Francisco. I spend most of my time in /r/diy, /r/coffee, and /r/foodporn, and I’ve taken it on as my personal mission to turn everyone at reddit HQ into coffee snobs.

Scott Tomlinson (/u/sgtjamz), head of finance & accounting
Hola! Super excited to join reddit in SF. I’ll be getting reddit’s books in order and helping us reach profitability (so we get to keep doing this and get to give more money to charity). I’m a big fan of music and a lot of my favorite subreddits help me find and share new music (at least new to me). I love browsing /r/pics and /r/travel — as inspiration to visit new places — and /r/science, /r/iama, and /r/todayilearned to learn new random stuff. I was raised at a dog kennel, and I recently found out I have an identical twin brother who lives 5 minutes from me.


Jaleh Afshar (/u/jaleh), senior UX designer 
Hi reddit ^__^ I've been a lurker for several years and officially joined to participate in the 2011 Arbitrary Day gift exchange. In my new role here, I’ll be working with the engineering team on improving the user experience of redditgifts. I’ll also be contributing designs for reddit’s community involvement initiatives and upcoming products. Aside from UX, my other interests include drawing, pizza, clay modeling, real estate, tabletop & video gaming, and hanging out with my house rabbits. I am also addicted to starting businesses.


Sean Forsgren (/u/rhygaar), product manager
Hello, folks! It’s a tremendous pleasure to be joining the reddit team here in beautiful Salt Lake City. It’s been a winding road to land at redditgifts, which has included the military, lots of college, film & television, mobile apps, and game producing for a major game studio. I’m excited to help drive some new and exciting products designed to better serve redditors with new ways to expand on the reddit experience. I’m an avid gamer, beer brewer, consumer of numerous books, and viking enthusiast. My dream is to sail aboard a viking longship next year, and finally earn my axe. You can find me lurking and liking allover reddit as /u/rhygaar over in subreddits like /r/homebrewing, /r/planetside, and /r/beekeeping. Otherwise I’ll be working on my house, in my yard, or enjoying a beer and a burger anywhere the law allows.


Rich McKinley (/u/rrmckinley), full-stack software engineer
Hello! I recently left San Francisco for Utah to work on redditgifts and exchanges. I couldn’t be happier. I traded dodging syringes in the Tenderloin for a little Rocky Mountain living. I love riding the train and my bike to work every day. I love programming language theory and data models. My favorite subreddit is /r/haskell. I drink strange South American tea.

Zean Tsoi (/u/zeantsoi), full-stack developer
I am honored to be joining this incredibly accomplished team in our endeavor to spread joy via redditgifts. As a native Utahn who spent many years in the Bay Area, I am thrilled to see San Francisco’s spirit of ingenuity taking root – and flourishing – in Salt Lake City. Here’s a promise: if you keep an eye on redditgifts, you will be witness to some very amazing stuff. Outside of work, I play for the venerated Park City Haggis Rugby Club, lurk Stack Overflow for rep, and ponder the merits of Weekend at Bernie’s as a work of post-modern existentialism. Hello!


Matt Lee (/u/madlee), front-end engineer, ads
Hey everyone! I just moved to San Francisco from Pittsburgh, PA to join reddit as the new frontend engineer for our self-serve ad platform. My goal here is to make interacting with ads on reddit a better experience for redditors and advertisers alike.  In my spare time, I enjoy playing games, marathon-netflix-watching, drawing, participating in game jams, and spending time with my fantastic fiancée. I think I'm the tallest person that works here.  I also make a mean pizza.  Favorite subreddits include /r/javascript, /r/webdev, and /r/Pareidolia.


William Westendorf (/u/doubleUsquared), manager of client relations
Hi everyone! It's an absolute pleasure to be working for reddit. I found my way here by way of traditional publishing when I realized I was talking reddit as much as I was talking books. I'll be working to make the reddit advertising experience a positive one for everyone involved. You can find me in /r/cfb during the fall, /r/hockey through the winter, and when my teams aren't playing, I'll be enjoying a good read in /r/books.


Lisa Liebig (/u/sporkicide), community manager
Hi! I came out of lurking a few years ago and am now becoming a more permanent part of the site. I’ve put down my fingerprint kit in order to help make your redditing experience more pleasant. Besides dealing with your problems, my hobbies include games, cooking (specializing in alcoholic desserts), and costume making — I’m active in the /r/cosplay community, especially /r/StarWars. My cats try to help, mostly by sitting on pattern pieces. I post all over the site but lately have spent a lot of time in /r/gameofthrones explaining causes of death. Seems appropriate.

We're still hiring! If you’d like to work at reddit, check out /r/redditjobs for the latest open positions. None of this would be possible without the support of you, the reddit community, thank you for your continued support!
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