Meet A ServiceTrader
Jamale Smith, Senior Onboarding Engineer
Jamale Smith is part of the Customer Success team as a Senior Onboarding Engineer.
He helps customers get started with and get the most value out of one of ServiceTrade’s add-on products, ServiceForms.
Tell me about your ServiceTrade journey.
I’m a part of the small set of people that went to the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. While I was going to college, I worked at Apple. I was at Apple for about five years and transitioned my roles while I was there. I was an inventory specialist in the backhouse then went to a more customer-facing role, becoming a Genius. Then, I got hired here at ServiceTrade in 2017. There were twenty employees when I first was hired, and there were six of us on the Customer Success team.
It’s definitely been a journey. I was on frontline support when I started for three months then was promoted to a project manager. I was a project manager for a little less than three years then went to be a project manager for ServiceForms when that product was being created as a proof of concept. It was initially Aaron Shoemaker, now Director of Customer Success, and I trying to figure out the process. I was the first one solely dedicated to that project, and now we have a team of four.
I learned a lot from Aaron, James Jordan, and G Singh in terms of project management. We have been able to streamline the project management process as we’ve grown as a company. It’s been really eye-opening.
I had an internship at a large Fortune 500 company and have friends who work for large corporations; it’s definitely different working for a company that’s transitioning from a startup to a scaleup. I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of something that is kind of grassroots—at the beginning stages of the company. I have been able to see how much effort it takes to start from humble beginnings and go through growing pains. One good thing is we haven’t had a lot of turnover for people who have been here for a while.
Go Tarheels!
What is your typical day like as a Senior Onboarding Engineer?
I am the Senior Onboarding Engineer for ServiceForms, so I am showing customers how to get the most out of one of ServiceTrade’s add-on products, ServiceForms. The ServiceForms product is in partnership with another app called Device Magic. It takes more of a design element where we take in the paper forms or PDFs that the customer is currently using, like their inspection forms, and create a mobile-friendly form for the technicians to complete.
A lot of service contractors use PDFs or some software that basically generates PDFs for their customer to read, summarizing their inspection. We either take that PDF and design a mobile-friendly form that is as close as possible to what they’re currently using or we use our starter kits to design forms tailored to that customer’s information.
As far as the workflow with the mobile device, the technician has the ability to fill out a mobile form on a mobile-friendly application that then turns the information they entered into a PDF that automatically integrates with ServiceTrade.
As a Senior Onboarding Engineer, we design the elements for the work templates through Device Magic’s platform, then in the background, we code the different elements within the form to create and update assets and deficiencies, attach pictures that a technician might take through the Device Magic mobile app, and have all that information land on that ServiceTrade job in the ServiceTrade application. There’s a lot of automation that takes place that we manage and streamline for our customers.
We take all the design and coding work for all the house of cards to stand up for our customer to present the information in an easy way to their customer. We do all this coding using Javascript, so it helps to have Javascript skills as an Onboarding Engineer in order to be able to read, edit, and write code in order to effectively have the middle piece work between the Device Magic and ServiceTrade integration.
What have been your favorite memories so far?
Before we were in the office that we are now, we had cop desks. If you’ve seen pictures of the old office, the desks were facing each other as soon as you got past the kitchen. A lot of great memories of talking over each other, saying jokes, and just being in the cop desks.
If I had one memory, it would be nerf gun fights. Before we got too big, everyone was instructed when they were hired to get a nerf gun and a plant. We actually had a plant assignment that you would try to take care of while at your desk.
The nerf gun fights would randomly happen towards the end of the week. People would buy nerf guns and try to top each other. G got an automatic nerf gun that would hold thirty to forty nerf pellets. A lot of times when things would get really intense and he’d bring that out, it would kind of be the end of that because no one ever got a gun that was better than his.
That was one of my favorite memories and then I would say going to get beer on Fridays before COVID. We as a team would go get lunch at Teriyakin’ (we shorten and call it Yakin), which is this really great stir fry Asian place, then we’d walk next door to this local bottle shop, Bottle Revolution (we call “Bottle Rev”), get a beer and just chat about the week. It was like, “Ah, it’s Friday!” That was a really good thing that we designed as a team.
Aaron and I sitting at our cop desks.
What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?
I had the opportunity to move to Denver, Colorado in October 2021. I like to hike. It’s one of the big reasons I moved out to Denver. I love the outdoors. Right now, it being winter here, I don’t get out to the mountains as much as I’d like. There’s some really nice walkable parks around my neighborhood.
I also like to workout and go to the gym. I haven’t in a while because of COVID, but one of the biggest things I like to do is play basketball. I have picked up some COVID hobbies like reading and Lego model building though.
Basketball, working out, and hiking are pretty much the main activities that I like to do when I have off-time.
Which of the ServiceTrade culture values is the most important to you and why?
I feel like how accepting we are of each other. We are weird is definitely the one I gravitate towards the most. The people are what make this company so great. We have a range of personality types and interests, which makes it interesting to communicate and just converse with my colleagues on a day-to-day basis.
I also think the enthusiasm we bring day-to-day is special. It’s very rare to have a combination of enthusiasm and discernment. Being able to be serious but at the same time approach it with levity is rare. A lot of times you have people who goof off too much or are too serious, and it makes the day a drag. The eclectic personality types combined with the enthusiasm to work hard is my favorite thing about this company.
