This is actually my second stint with Allstate NI, the work has always been interesting and my colleagues are fantastic.
UI Engineers are focused on researching patterns, techniques and methods to help our customers use Allstate products.
We are a part of the product teams and we continually iterate on design, in response to what our users want.
Here’s a day in my role at Allstate.
8:30am - Emails
Firing up the laptop and Macbook. Then a big cup of coffee and start working through my inbox, catching up on any overnight emails.
9am - Get going
I'm working with US colleagues Tad and Mike in Chicago on a micro-site landing page for an email campaign. I open up the terminal and start cloning a repo on Allstate's internal github.
The designers have come through with some PSD Comps for the mobile and desktop versions, which have been approved by the Allstate business owners.
Looks like a perfect candidate for the responsive Allstate UIToolkit that we have been building with the User Experience (UX) team.
10am - Visual basically
Time for some windows based development work to help my Life Sales Central team with templates that need laid out.
Need to harness our responsive grid system in order to make sure that data is properly displayed on screen for different devices.
Time to check in some code on the Team Foundation Server. I’m so used to source control through the command line and now it’s time for some point and click.
11am - Protractor
When the AngularJS framework came on the scene one of the areas that I developed a deep interest in is testing what is displayed to the user on screen in integration, as well as end to end tests.
Protractor is a node.js program that is supports Jasmine as language for writing tests and works in conjunction with Selenium to run tests.
I've been working on a comprehensive set of tests to ensure that the UIToolkit displays as specified across multiple versions of browsers, multiple operating systems and multiple devices.
12pm - Automation Research
As part of testing I have been investigating and comparing various cloud based providers of virtual devices, so that we can make sure that our UIToolkit works on that obscure android tablet device with kitkat 4.4.
2pm - Global team video conference
We talk about products we are working on and how everyone is getting on. Allstate NI has invested a lot in installing video conferencing facilities and it really helps to bond the global team, as it feels like you are all in the room.
3pm – Feedback follow up
Got some feedback on the homepage I've been working on as a side project. Time to up the rems on the base font and then it should be ready for sign off.
4pm - Life Sales Central team standup
Time for my stand-up meeting. It's a phone conference meeting so I actually sit down. Afterwards I need to resolve some more issues with laying out my templates.
5pm - Home time
Time to get across town and catch the bus home.
Get to know me more here.
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