EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
Michael Cammarato
WEB DEVELOPER
Meet Michael – currently celebrating his one-year anniversary with the company! In his time with the development team, he has focused most of his efforts on designing and building the presentation of FastTrack’s product suite, delivering high-quality results right to our users.
What is your current position with FastTrack? How long have you been in it?
My current position is Web Developer; more specifically Front-End Developer. I build user interfaces (look and feel) and define the user experience (behavior and interaction) of our applications. I’ve been with the company since November of 2019.
What is your typical workweek like?
I spend most of my time throughout the week working on our new FastTrack2020 product, which will replace the Caseworker application. My role is architecting the front-end codebase which includes picking or code libraries, defining code writing standards, and building reusable components for rapid and consistent development. I also work closely with other developers to migrate existing functionality to our new product in a more modern in flexible way.
Do you work with any specific customers at FastTrack?
I don’t specifically work with any customers, though I have done work for Standard and Guardian. I mostly work on an admin portal called Heartbeat, which gives our internal employees access to the health of our operations and allows them to automate tasks like generating reports.
How has FastTrack helped your personal development?
FastTrack provides an environment that made me a much stronger developer. When I first started, I stuck mainly to front-end development and giving our applications a facelift. Over time, I’ve worked a lot with back-end developers and have become much more “full stack.” FastTrack has a small team of extremely talented developers who are always willing to share their knowledge and teach. So that—combined with our team leads giving us a lot of freedom and room to make our decisions—has helped me grow faster than I could have hoped for.
What is something you love about working at FastTrack?
I love that FastTrack has a team of strong developers and great people. When problems arise, no one panics and everyone works together to solve issues quickly. I genuinely enjoy everyone’s company and am thankful for the friends I’ve made through my time here. Our culture has a great balance of joking around and humor while also taking our work seriously and putting in the extra effort to delivery quality to our customers.
Do you have any accomplishments at FastTrack that you are particularly proud of?
I’m most proud of our internal Heartbeat application. I was able to take the reins and design the application’s user interface (UI)/user experience (UX) and front-end architecture myself from a blank slate. It has a pretty different look and feel from our existing application, but I’ve gotten great positive feedback from people who have been using it. It makes me feel great to know a design I came up with from scratch was so received so well.
What is your favorite book, TV show, movie, or podcast?
My favorite podcast at the moment is Stuff You Should Know. They research and talk about completely random topics and you learn a lot throughout the show. It also helps my useless knowledge for trivia.
What are your favorite hobbies and interests?
My favorite hobby is snowboarding. I’ve been boarding since I was about 18 and every year I organize a trip to a different mountain. I get together 15-20 people (a mix of family and friends) and we do a long weekend at places like Killington VT. It’s a way to catch up with everyone and disconnect from our phones/social media for a little white.
I also love playing guitar and recording music. I’ve been playing since I was around 11 and got my first degree in music. Even though I don’t work in the music industry, it will always be my biggest hobby.
Another current hobby of mine is building up my media server. I’ve been buying CD’s, movies, and TV Show DVDs and building a lossless audio/video server so I can stream super high-quality media wherever I am. Eventually Spotify and Netflix will get too expensive and I’ll be prepared!
What type of activities are you mostly likely to be up to on the weekends?
Hanging out with my friends, BBQ’ing, lifting weights, playing basketball, and working on coding projects.
What person would you most like to switch places with for a day?
I would switch places with John Mayer. I’d give anything to play guitar as well as he does and be personal friends with some of the best musicians in the music industry. If I were him for the day, I’d call up Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan and jam the blues all day.
What’s a surprising fact about yourself?
I eat a lot more food than I thought I ever would; I was so picky as a kid.
What is your favorite vacation destination? What’s one you haven’t visited yet but would like to in the future?
I would love to go Italy and visit some family who I haven’t seen in years. Ideally a backpack across Europe where I could see as many countries as possible.
What’s the first thing you would do if you won the lottery?
In this order: Buy my parents a massive house, rent a helicopter, and jump out of it with my snowboard into the Swiss Alps (and have it take me up and down whenever I want).
Who is one of your personal heroes?
My father is my personal hero. I genuinely have never seen someone work so hard for what he loves to do. In his work, he manages more people than I can keep track of and holds an extremely high bar for standards, letting nothing slip through the cracks, but is also a compassionate leader. In his personal life he has fun and is lighthearted. He taught me how to work insanely hard at an early age and to treat people with respect and kindness. For that, I can never thank him enough.
Have you ever encountered anyone famous?
I sold a computer to Kyrie Irving (world championship winning basketball player for East Orange). This was before he was famous and just got into Duke to play basketball. I didn’t recognize him and almost didn’t give him the college discount because he didn’t have an ID, until he pulled up a picture of himself on ESPN shaking coach K’s hand.
Do you have any nicknames?
Since I was one of maybe 27 other Mike C’s in my life, my friends call me Cammo.
What is your motto for life?
Work as hard as you can for the people and things you love and be a student each and every day.
Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
