Data Replication Ain't Easy: Interview With Josh Hicks of Jumpmind

Hi and welcome to the Dev Leader podcast. My name is Nick Cosantino and I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. In this video interview, I was joined by Josh Hicks of Jumpmind. And we started off by going over some of Josh's career experiences where we got to see some work as a contractor. He talked about corporate life. We talked about how these types of things that you want to be able to do in your career grow and shift over time based on your priorities. But what I thought was super interesting is that this network effect and how it happened in Josh's career, not only for himself, but in terms of the businesses that he was working at. So, I think that this is a super interesting conversation. You'll get to hear more about Jump Mind and the products and services they have focused on being able to synchronize data, which might seem like a simple thing on the Happy Path, but as soon as you start thinking about how big these distributed systems are and all of the different situations where you might have to synchronize data, it gets pretty wild. So, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Josh, if you don't mind kicking us off here, would love to hear a bit of background for how you got started. Uh, it could be as early as you want to go back. you don't have to go all the way if you don't want to, but uh sort of how you knew you wanted to sort of get started in this industry and then maybe to to where you are today. >> Yeah, thanks. Hey, well, first of all, thanks thanks Frank thanks for having me on. Um yeah, so my name is Josh Hicks, software engineer, jump mine, sales, tech, a little bit of marketing, a little bit of everything. Uh but it started the career with technology um software development. uh kind of thought I'd get down an engineering path one way or the other and software worked out. Um really uh interesting fact though started out as consulting. So my first experiences were with consulting >> and ironically it was with two of the owners of Jump. Um so and that was prior but to them starting the company. So we we had all kind of started on the same consulting path with the same company. Um, so I kind of knew knew two of them from that track. Um, and then really early on then I I thought that'd be nice to roll into more of a corporate. Um, let's check out what it's like to work for a cor an organization. So I jumped into a full role, you know, as kind of a salary corporate employee and and and that was interesting, but um, and a lot of pros. It was really nice working for a big organiz couple big organizations and you got a team and it was steady where consulting you kind of could bounce around. So, you kind of trade off the the constant shift in work to more of a steady. You get used to the environment, you get used to the industry that you're in. Um, and then found out where you you can you can put in a lot of hours sometimes with the, you know, corporate America. And so, >> yeah, >> went back to um, hey, maybe uh, freelance. So, then I kind of started my own thing and freelance for a while. And that's where I circled back in with Jump Mine. Um, two of the owners um, that I had worked with previously were were starting to get the symmetric product underway and they reached out to me and said, "Hey, we want to take this into our first major retailer, technically probably second. They had kind of been working on it from grassroots at their original company. This was going to be the first real customer that was new to them. And so they reached out to me and said, "Hey, you know, you're in this freelancing space. would you like to come over and and help us get this going? And so I was subcontracting at the time with Jump Mine um as a freelancer and and and historically had known the known these guys. So we had a nice relationship >> um and went into our first major retailer and and the first goal was >> kind of get that um symmetric product in place, get it working with all these uh retail type stores. And with that one was really interesting. It was it was really to get international. So this is a a large organization that was not only we were working to integrate you know the symmetric product into moving data between all these stores but also on the international front. So right off the you know the rip we had some complex problems just with the integration of stores but then we threw in the international aspect of it right you know pretty quickly thereafter. and as we gained traction um that was great. And then ironically our current CEO President Joe um was at that company as the Yeah. So so we had built relationships there from both sides. So from a freelancing to them in a startup to um some of the people that are currently employed by employed by Jump Mine, we were all in that in that mesh network kind of right out of the gate. This is something I noticed as you're talking through this and wanted to get your perspective on this. I'm making an assumption here, but it seems like there's uh a lot of what has been going on in terms of sort of your career and and where things are at now in terms of how this is set up that like networking has been a tremendous part of all of that is and like can you maybe >> comment on that like like coincidence or was there a lot of work to put into these relation like how did that all look? No, that that's I it's it's it's really fascinating because I'm dealing now with my own children trying to get out and and they're going through school and and >> Yeah. Yeah. >> getting ready to approach that next level. >> But yet networking is everything. I mean, don't ever underestimate the relationships you've made. Don't burn bridges because the career paths change and and you'd be amazed even at different cities. I've run into people that we've crossed paths. you think all right you know that you know somebody's relocated and you know that's you know we're not going to interact again but it really >> it really is a it's a tight network especially when you start crossing industries or different technologies so if you get down a path of certain technologies you certainly might loop back and then definitely with industry um now symmetric itself isn't so much a retail only product but we're in a very common retail use case and we interact so much with so many different retail retailers and so much of the network of people. Not only did I know before Jump Mind that now are maybe working here, we've crossed paths almost probably 70 80% of us previously. So I'm throwing out that number, but um >> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. >> Show me the data. Yeah, >> you know, it seems like, you know, five years into your career, 10 years into your career, the the percentage of people that you start to reinter with, >> right? >> And the first people anybody looks at, especially when we're looking to hire, well, who's in our who's in our, you know, in our circle of of of people that we've interacted with that would be a good fit that one, right, maybe they're in a good situation, but maybe they aren't. We don't know. And so, those are usually the first people we also tend to look out for. And and then and then a lot of referral. So, just like you're trying to bring in a product and get company referrals, right? >> Similar happens on the human uh front where, you know, you bring in somebody, maybe you know somebody else that worked at that company and then you reach out and you you you may not even know that you're being um kind of referred to but just you're you look at a resume and you see they've worked at X Y and Z. Well, I know some people that worked at X Y and Z. And then immediately there's that that perception comes with it. So, it's so important to don't, you know, keep positive relationships with people, work hard because they do carry with you and and and they can benefit or or really hurt you. So, >> right. Well, and thanks for sharing that because I think that like especially when I've been talking with, you know, more junior developers or people that are aspiring, right? It's like the currently with the industry very difficult right now. don't mean to minimize that at all, but I I think that, you know, people are they're blasting resumes out to wherever they can. Um, and then it's not working. And it's like, well, there there's that front to it where you have to kind of do the volume of applications. But then there's also this other side where it's like networking is not an overnight thing. You don't like send a message to one person on LinkedIn and you're like, "Okay, that's it. I'm I'm getting this job now." It's this thing that you have to work at over time. And like you said, not burning bridges, right? Like keeping in touch with people. Like all of these things take time and when you invest into them, they don't give you the opportunity automatically, but they increase I I kind of refer to it like increasing your surface area for luck, right? If you're not doing >> I mean risk risk aversion, it's all percentages and evaluating luck. I mean, it kind of comes down to >> You're right. So it it's cool that like in sort of your experience that a lot of these things have have happened where there's been overlap and opportunities for people like this is a good fit. Let's make it work. So I think one more sort of question that I have around your career journey before kind of switching gears here a little bit is that >> I thought it was really interesting and I don't know if I talk about this enough especially on on this podcast. It would be cool to hear from you. But I think that I either seem to talk with people that have done like only freelancing or contract work or only like well I'm going to call like startups or corporate but like but not not a uh a blend where it's like I've done one for a while and then I switch to another. So, um I don't really have a pointed question here, but just from, you know, your perspective, >> being able to go, you know, do freelancing work or contract work versus being in corporate, one of the things you touched on was that >> being in corporate was more steady. Did you find that like you had a knack for the the contracting work, the freelance work where you had to go out and look for that work like that was easy for you or like what did that look like? Because for me, >> I can't imagine. Yeah, it it and kind of comes with the lif style um you're in. At the time um you know, we're starting to build our family and and look at a house and corporate world seemed like that steady stable. Let let's you know, not have too many moving parts. >> Sure. >> Um so that that did play into it because I mean corporate America was great. Um you know, lots of social events and and you knew what you had dayto day for the most part. Obviously, there's still a lot of corporate layoffs and things that do happen. Um, but that that was uh >> kind of in the lifestyle I was in. And then and then I I got to the point where I was like, I I really want to try this freelancing. But with it came the challenge of I got to remarket myself and and I'm on a six-month or a one-year contract or a three three-month contract, whatever those those were. you didn't know where your potentially your next check was coming from if you know that six months was a couple weeks out and you're waiting to meet with management. Hey, are we getting renewed or do I need to start branching out? And that's where the network came into even more play. Um because a lot of people that I had worked with, I didn't really start the freelancing till about 10 years into my career. So at that point I had had the chance to build up that network. So at least if I knew that there was something coming to an end, I started reaching out and and it forces you to you really have to kind of self-market which I I will say today's um younger pe youth in technology people are coming out of school and everything they are so much more established at that aspect than I ever was. um you know it really is I mean there is some real positives to the social media and the influence that they are they're kind of been grown with um for me that was it was kind of new from where I was coming out in my career to self-market and to promote and LinkedIn was you know kind of just taking off and all the social media sites um you know so it was it was just evolving but you you had to do it a little more grassroots on your own and and emails and chats and phone and stuff um now they have a lot of tools accessible so use them you know like yeah yeah yeah definitely take advantage of those and and you have that ability to probably get out there and and and kind of freelance a little more for yourself if that's the path you want you know it comes with a little more riskreward um so not necessarily for everybody but there's some uneasiness but one you know depends depends what you have behind you too like if you're working with a young family and you're trying to build that foundation might not be the stress levels you want at that point in your career, but you kind of got to figure out what fits best on life and what fits best on your career path at the same time. >> Yeah. No, thanks for thanks for sharing that because uh even that last point about, you know, at different points in your career, in your life, different things are a priority. Like uh I've talked about this before on on different videos and stuff, but like when I was working at a startup before Microsoft, you know, I would work there for eight years, would work around the clock and it was like I can do that because I didn't have anything else going on. I didn't have, you know, I had paid I managed fortunately paid off like my student loans and stuff thanks to internships. I did not have a wife or kids. Couldn't keep a girlfriend even. So, it was like I would go to work, I would go to the gym, and I would sleep and like >> and I could do that. Today, like I'm married, we have we don't have kids, but we got we got uh three dogs and two cats. Like, I got >> I got other priorities in my life now. And even if I wanted to work that much, which I don't, but if I wanted to work that much, then it could be accommodated. Different priorities. So, um yeah, thanks for thanks for sharing that. I think that's good for people to hear. Um, so when you had started where you're at, my understanding is that you were one of the like the first senior developers there. Is that fair to say? What did that look like in the the early days of like that's kind of getting up and running? >> Yeah. Yeah. It was it was cool cuz like I said, I had kind of gone through consulting, corporate, freelance, and I I had the liberty of freelancing with Jump Mine. So, I kind of had a taste of the culture. I knew some of the people, >> right? But when I I signed on, it was kind of the first real senior type level person they had besides the ownership. So it was it was a big jump for them and also for me. Um but it was really cool. I mean we're it was that typical hey our our ping pong table doubled as our corporate uh conference uh table. So we um small group and we moved a couple offices in the first few years because of growth and and you know and different challenges and things. So, but it was really cool because you got to see unlike some other areas that I had been in my career. You got to have to see lots of parts of the industry. I had to wear a sales hat kind of earlier than I, you know, didn't have formal training. I had to wear some marketing hats. You had to wear some legal hats. You had to you had to you got involved in a lot more of the aspects that you normally may not when you're in that early stages of a startup. So, it can be a little overwhelming. you don't get to lock in on maybe just the development software. Um, but that really helped um helped me personally, but I think it also helped us as a company because one of the things that was really unique about Jump Mine, we we no venture funding. We built out from the, you know, the ground up and that was a core um uh core piece of the ownership. they >> they wanted to build the company from the grassroots and they wanted to make sure they weren't taking outside funding so that not that that's wrong just that that allowed them to drive their vision. Um and and I think they did a good job of that. I mean early on there's always like you mentioned lots of hours and peaks valleys and you've got some chaos and unknowns and you're working hard for maybe the you know some what you take for granted now is maybe an easier kind of sale but then you know it's a lot of work and you're put trying to get that product off the ground floor. So you're dealing with a lot more bugs, you're dealing with a lot more uncertainty. Um and and that was pivotal that the owners had total owner like total control of that whole process and and maybe we didn't move from A to B as fast as somebody with that that kind of VC or something but that allowed us to really appreciate it kind of like earn your own you know you make your first dollar you say you know rather than being given something we we really had to appreciate early on everything that was happening and so you you get you find that culture changed as the company grew. Uh not really. Um we we've even had some new ownership and all that and and and it like I said there were also people though that we've worked with previously so that >> that that culture remained the same. The only thing that really changed was let's get on a more probably a growth like know because you kind of got to get that stability. Can we can we cover everybody's uh salary? Can we make sure that this is a good place to work and we're not having to do layoffs. That was a very key piece of initially and then we got thrown the the speedball with COVID like everybody did you know like you know what do we what does this look like and what is this going to shape the industry and so we were a very sta the the owners did a fantastic job of making sure it was a stable foundation so we came out of co we were strong we were able to >> take that next step and then really go into a growth pattern and so that's where I think what got real exciting then is is to really see where that growth was, that potential was. We knew it was all there and that's what we were working hard towards, but you know, until you start experience it and that's what's really come out of the last couple years now is we can see kind of the the fruits of your labor, you know, not only and we're bringing in a lot of good colleagues, intelligent people, people that we worked with all across the industries. It's cool to see them now. we're all under one umbrella, you know, so they might have been either I contracted for them or we were, you know, in different competing companies or whatever. And now you're seeing a lot of good good intelligent people that you've come cross paths with all start to come into one. We're seeing the growth. So, it's been it's been an exciting transition, but I don't think that core that core has changed much at all. >> That's awesome. Yeah. like the before Microsoft when I was at a startup that was one of the things that was that was top of mind that exactly as you described it like being in early like it was not uh externally funded or anything and like you said not that there's anything wrong with that um but it it felt like being in early like I'm not I'm not confused about this I don't think that it was my company but it felt like it felt like that way like hey look if we don't need to go blow money on stuff like we shouldn't like, you know, like just it felt scrappy, right? And it felt like even though I'm not making that decision, I'm like, I understand that because we're trying to we're trying to grow this thing, right? It felt like I had that responsibility as well. So um yeah, it's it's a really cool time, but um I think like one of the things I noticed over time, not that like I think the culture was always pretty on point. Um, they grew significant. Like I think >> I was there like employee seven or eight and they grew to like 250 by the time I was gone. They're they're well beyond that now. So I'm they could have completely changed by now. But I do remember some people coming on board and I could tell that they took some things for granted, >> right? >> Because it was like, oh, like we don't have to worry about that cuz companies just works this way. And I'm like, yeah, but like you weren't here for when it didn't. Like that's not that's that's a new thing. like the fact that you have that luxury to not worry about it like that's new. So >> yeah, that's that and that's kind of where we're at I would say right now. Like we're bringing on so many new faces and it's great the company is growing and it's like man we remember back when we were you know do how do we save 30 bucks on a hotel room? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I remember the first uh I didn't fly much for work or anything as a as an engineering manager and software engineer, but there was a time they had to send me to Singapore and I remember going to book my ticket and I was like, "Oh man, like this is nuts." Like I' i've never flown that far in my life and I was trying to find like the cheapest thing and then I sent it to go get expense and they were like, "No, no, like there's a company policy that if it's over like 24 hours, whatever it is, it's like business class." And I was like, I'm not I'm not putting that on here. That's way too much. They're like, no, that's the policy. Like, >> yeah, >> it's a tough transition when you when you've kind of been at that grassroots. No, I get it. >> Yeah. I'm like, I know that's not my money, but it still feels wrong. I'm like, I'm going to be asleep on this plane anyway, like passed out like this. So, like I don't need anything that's thousands of dollars more. But >> yeah, I I I think that is one interesting aspects of any kind of startup. if you get the opportunity to do it, it it is a cool experience because you you have a different level of appreciation that doesn't maybe come with, you know, a big consulting gig or a corporate America. And >> the good thing is out there if you got that network, you could try it and if if it's not for you, then it's, you know, it's not there. But, you know, you can transition back. But it it's it does provide some other areas that those other aspect those other avenues don't don't quite touch on. >> And like you said too, like wearing different hats. Personally, I didn't have to do any sales and marketing, but got exposed to a lot of it, which is really cool. Um, because otherwise, you know, I could live under a rock as a software developer and be totally happy just writing code, but >> like my career took a management path extremely early on because they were like, we need people to help with this. I'm like, I don't know what that means, but >> okay. Um, but yeah, like for you, you said you got exposed to sales and marketing. I'm sure that was a maybe not in the moment. It didn't feel like it, but I'm sure that's been a tremendous asset to you in your >> core. Yeah, especially with the background in that technology. It's always rooted there that it's been nice to get into those secondary kind of like like a sales or you know I don't do a ton with marketing as much anymore now but like um when I get into a room if it if if we're on that sales kind of front I've still got that technology behind me so I can I can still kind of feel comfortable talking to things and you don't have to I'll take it offline and we'll ask you know you can you can kind of get to the get to answers to the the prospects or customers right in that and and that really helps um you know create that relationship up early >> and that's a that's a huge skill right because I think there's probably many developers go through their entire career not having you know not interfacing with customers or potential customers or anything like that. It's like you're you know you're getting the stuff off the task board working with your manager or product owner >> churning through this stuff >> but like Yeah. And and and and you know it with anything in software it's very easy to disconnect yourself >> to the to the code to the problem to the use case. >> But when you actually can even witness even if it's an internal C user like if you can witness them experiencing the software and how they're using it or you can see how it benefits them directly or you can see where a customer is >> either having a challenge to use it or how they're having success using it. It kind of adds another layer than when you're just looking at the code and the use case and I check the button or check the box that this got completed. This this task is done and that task is done and I unit tested and it it has a little more feel to it when you can actually see it in use or see how how it's interacted by the end users. >> Yeah, absolutely. I I'm always trying to remind myself that when I'm especially when I'm working with my employees like telling them why is important and I remind them too like if you don't know why and why is not oh because Nick said so or because that was in the plan like if you don't know why we're doing it I want you to ask because it's my responsibility to make sure that like you understand that that you're engaged because if I tell you how to do something or what to do but not why there's a huge missed opportunity as you're not going to be totally engaged. I'm not taking advantage of how, you know, intelligent the engineers are. Like they're just like, "Someone told me to go do this. I'm do it." >> Kind of sucks, but whatever. I guess this is what we do. But I don't want it to be that way. I want to be like, "Here's the challenge we're trying to solve. Here's a couple of ideas we've heard about, but like you are the expert. Please go off and be creative and solve this problem." And engagement goes way up when people are like this is my problem to own, not this is my code that I have to go like basically copy what someone told me to do. Like that kind of sucks I think for most people. So >> yeah. Yeah. I I mean that that's been a lot of the like the symmetric product itself because we're we're a lot of our revenue stream is is comes from the support behind it. So >> it it's it's really it's really critical that we have to understand our customers and we we're we're we're a people company in terms of we we you know software is just a means to an end. But if you're if if if you're not if it's not solving or it's not making their lives easier, it's not solving the problem for them and it's not effective from a a people perspective, then we're not getting it done. So, it's really cool to see on the support front where they're challenged with it. It's not always fantastic either. I mean, you have unhappy um situations, unexpected situations. We've all been in technology. I mean, we've all had Saturday nights that went long and so, you know, rollouts that went arry and you have backup plans and all that, but um you're really dealing firsthand with end users and customers, >> right? >> Yeah. And that goes a long way to make sure that you understand like their journey, right? Because like you said, if uh if it's not working for them like in terms of adding value or making their lives easier, then >> right >> I don't know like probably not going to be sustainable. But let's let's maybe talk a little bit about so >> let's dive into what you guys are building. So like let's talk about some of this tech. I don't obviously don't go into the details for what you're not allowed to talk about, but um for for anything on the technology side that you want to chat through. I think that'd be great to hear for what you guys are building. >> Yeah. So, I mean, if if the Symmetric DS product was kind of the core product behind Jump. It was an open- source um again the culture of the the company was, you know, we want to build something that people can benefit from. It was originally um designed to solve that retail need. So um that that and when I say that retail need it, you know, connecting stores that were spread across geographic locations that have different network connections, security, flexibility. Um you have to be trustworthy of the data that's moving. So it was a it was a complex problem for retailers. Um couple of the owners saw that problem. They they started to build that and fill that niche, but they wanted to open source it at the same time. So that was the core pillar was let's get this thing off the ground but let's get people using it. Um >> and so um it had a huge it had a a real strong community still does we get quite a few downloads a week and and then and then we had and then we looked at all right let's let's not just solve this problem um but we need to add like a support layer to it. So we, you know, let's let's put on a a support layer that we can engage people. And then we have a professional version that just kind of anything that's not core to the replication, we start to add layers to so that you can do advanced things that allow you to be more kind of an enterprise. um you know kind of any kind of scaling and clustering and redundancies and and just performance stuff or or more of the high-tech endpoints some of these platforms that are a little more cloud-based or whatever a little more you got a little more skin in the game you're either playing paying for the cloud provider whatnot. So some of those endpoints and connectors and all that that we build into the product we'll we'll put into that professional offering. So, we still got kind of the best of both worlds where >> there's a lot of groups that can use it. Um, and that community edition that works out fantastic. Um, but then if you're really into that that layer where the criticality of the data, you know, if it's something like we've got to have somebody that that we can talk to because this is this can't be down. We need we need to be able to to to get somebody um in contact with. So, we've got the experts on staff that we can can get that that help to them. But, it's been >> that's >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I was just going to say, sorry, the um it's interesting. It sounds like the still to this day the core there's a like a a sort of a basis to it that is still open source and >> awesome. And then the obviously in order to have a business around some something that's open source it sounds like the >> like you can't just use the open source software and like you know cross your fingers and say nothing will ever go wrong at at scale. So the business itself is more about ensuring that there is a support and professional services on top of and you talked about additional features as well but that's like the extra layer is the the business, >> right? >> Cool. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that that is the yeah that's the gist of the product and it's it's it's been fantastic because we I mean we we like I said we started in that retail kind of industry and it's just widened because at the core we're really >> we're really a data company and as you probably know 20 some years ago plus there data was only stored in a a few less way you know there was a lot of relational databases you might have some files um you got some mainframes and stuff but I mean there wasn't nearly the amount of data data storage and how cheap it is and how you can put it and move it and place it anywhere and the analytic engines that are out there. So um you know back in the day we watched the evolution where data was just it was kind of just the movement where we needed to move data between these >> between these sites between these locations and like I said it started really with retail but we quickly branched into offices andarmacies and uh shipping and fishing and cruise lines and and so a lot of different use cases where data is spread out geographically, needs to be shared, needs to be transmitted and it needs to be flexible and it needs to be secure. And so although data movement doesn't sound overly complex anymore, 17 years of doing it has become, you know, really where we've strongholded like we a lot of people can kind of hit that happy path. It's it's what happens when everything around it is is breaking down and falling apart and how resilient are you and flexible are you to handle the neverchanging list of technologies that keep coming out. >> Yeah. I I think that when you start talking about scale of things that's where people maybe don't realize right. So you're talking about scale even if you have one customer that customer might have you know many different sites and then you multiply that by the number of customers like the when you have data in one spot or you have a couple of databases to sync between like not not so crazy but that problem can balloon out of control then you need to have things like security on top you need to have redundancy >> the like without getting to all the details of it like I work in office 365 so exchange with email is like the thing the like we have to make sure that there's redundancy like across the planet. uh it has to be highly available and it's like I don't know to me like it's email like that doesn't sound like the sexiest thing but like that's people's email and it's not just like a couple people it's it's all of the Microsoft like clients right like so the scale of >> like sometimes the scale of the you know the domain can make the challenges or the constraints like extraordinary because if it was just you know keep a backup of someone's data like that's not so bad. But now you need to have like geographically redundant, highly available times, you know, millions and millions and millions like suddenly >> gets pretty wild. >> Yeah. And especially I mean and we deal like a lot of it is is environment. I mean because we're we're we're running software. It could be across the globe and it could be not just hundreds, thousands of endpoints that are in sync and you got all especially the edge now with devices and handhelds and I mean there's a lot of of there's a lot between all those points you know you've got firewalls and layers and security layers and network is uh network outages and and so those layers start to add real complexity and I mean obviously the cloud is fantastic but not everything can always be in the cloud. And so that we do a lot that's in between. Um so we're doing >> we do a lot of where hey, you know, maybe your main storage and your main um end end of endgame of the data is going to be up in the cloud, but where it's all gathered, captured, and and where the users are, it might be all over the place and and they may be in and out of service. Um especially when you start dealing with maritime. I mean you got shipping vessels and cruise lines that are constantly in and out of um network changing all the time and their data changes might be all the time. You might have high impacts of of changes that are coming in and so getting that data back to the cloud might might be very volatile at times. And so >> that's a interesting challenge and goes back to like understanding like the user, right? Because if you're as you were talking through this and it's like okay it's retail you expand out beyond that. If no one was thinking about hm like yeah as soon as you get into maritime or other situations where your connectivity maybe isn't quite as stable as having a a store that's mostly plugged in and connected like suddenly you're not really building solutions for those folks that really have a different use case. Yep. And and it is it's it it's really opened doors for us too because like I said with we're we're primarily built on that data front. Um and and data just keeps people aren't getting rid of it. It seems like with storage getting cheaper. Um you have more and more and and there's a lot and there's obviously a whole space on just governance and you know everything that's going around all that. Um so it these are problems that are kind of new. They were they weren't necessarily is I mean they might have been in some of the bigger large companies but now we're seeing every company of every different size is starting to deal with the same data. Everyone's talking analytics and and and all the all the AI kind of benefits that they get >> whole other layer. >> Yeah. And you can't be competitive in your market anymore without real data that's that you can trust and that you understand and and that you can act on. And so, so having that vehicle now that that can allow that to all happen. I mean, we're not the ones that tell you what to do. We just allow you to to have all the information that you need in front of you so that you can make those decisions and you can plug in a lot of those analytic engines and stuff to really take it to that next level. >> Very cool. Yeah. Like it's it's essentially and not to minimize it, but it's an entire platform for synchronizing data across >> Exactly. >> many different end points. Very cool. >> Exactly. Awesome. >> I have a I have a note and um this is from someone who had sent it over before we were recording and I I don't want to put you on the spot, but the I'm going to do it a little bit. I think you'd probably be able to answer this, but um it said that you might be able to kind of talk us through what happens during a major disaster in terms of like what happens uh like how how does the platform try to make sure that if you know there is a disaster and there's you know data is unavailable or like a store is offline or some endpoint like what does that look like behind the scenes in terms of being able to like make sure that data >> eventually gets synchronized and all like I don't even know from your perspective what that looks like, but hope that's not too much on the spot. >> Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm used to it. No, no. I mean, and the whole platform was built for that in mind. I mean, like I said, the the happy path stuff is is not really what I mean, a lot a lot of developers could get in and and and move data between systems. That's never really the problem. The problem is is these kinds of situations and and one of the core tenants of the product I mean we we do not release anything get rid of anything that hasn't fully committed fully been transmitted. It's all built around redundancy resiliency so it retries if there's outages it can report them. It does it retains everything. Um and so nothing is lost and we retain we've had we've had uharmacies where a store might be offline for 30 days. they didn't lose an ounce of data >> because it's still there. The the mechanisms are mechanisms are in place to continue capturing retaining when that pipe is back and and and whatever external to us was fixed, you know, whether there's a network outage, maybe weather patterns happen, whatever. If maybe there's just an upgrade or there's something happening that and in between when that is re realigned, it just the symmetric product just keeps picking up and and right where it left off. So you have you have complete um visibility. You can track and trace everything. We've got monitors and notifications built in. And and a really cool feature that we just added about two three years ago is this full compare and repair that has a a full validation mechanism. We were going to conferences and we're talking a lot of customers and like well how do we know? How do we know? You know, so there's this >> source trust us bro. >> Yeah. Right. Right. and and so we're like we really need to look at what we can do and we we had always had one in place but it was kind of simplified where is if those endpoints are on the same um network because that problem's not as hard to solve. Do I you know are these two data sets aligned? We can do that with with local connections. It the real difficulty is how do I if I know if my data is aligned between here and a node in Asia um you know so so and they're both in use. They're both taking changes. Um and so that's a really complex cool development problem is to really figure out like all right how do we uh you know check some of this information and transmit it >> um with time in mind with across scale and as users are using the system. So it's without outages >> and it's not at rest, right? Because like so it is literally changing as you're trying to do that comparison >> theoretically and you have options to say only check what is at rest or not at rest or you know so how aggressive do you want to be with that? So, that was a nice add-on feature um that's kind of above and beyond that really helps people feel confident about like what what is moving. Is this is this really going to is this really back in sync? Because because going back to your original question, the outage failure, you know, that's everyone's main concern. Are we back to where we wanted to be before the outage occurred? And so that that's where those extra bells and whistles come in is that let's check the box, make sure we're back to where we are comfortable again, where we started before the the outage occurred, >> right? And it's it's interesting, right? Because even with that problem, so you could build a solution that that once things are back online, everything is synchronized again. Like obviously customers like happy, right? That's great news. But the point you brought up around the confidence of it, I think is very interesting. Um, I experienced something similar in digital forensics where it was like, you know, you could have pictures that look the same or data that looks the same. Um, people like, so a lot of what I was building was taking data off of devices. So my team in particular would take, you know, cell phones and we would build the software that takes the data off of that and then someone goes, "How do I know >> that that's the data from the phone?" Like >> pro like how do you prove it? Right? And >> traditionally with computer forensics, it was a hard drive. So you could image the drive and then you could take a hash of the data and then your hashes would would be equal. With phones, as soon as your phone's on, it's not at rest anymore. It is the operating system is literally changing stuff on the phone. >> So unless you've physically done a chip off of the device, which destroys the device, it's not going to be at rest. So suddenly we went from having all of these customers that were very used to like, hey, like you know, we can use a hash and we know that it's a perfect image. We're like, you can't get that. It's just it's impossible. >> Just changing >> because it's if it's a cryptographic hash, if one bit changes, the whole hash changes. So, how do we now we have to find different ways to give people confidence that we've gotten an image of their device. So, I can totally relate to that where people are like, look, seems like it worked, but like prove it to me. I need the confidence because if it didn't, I need to do something. I need to take an action to like >> to make it better, right? So, Yeah. And it it was a large effort. We put a lot of effort into I was a lot of I was a key part in helping architect and a lot of whiteboard sessions and back and forth and what about and what about and it was it's a tough problem. It really is. I mean as you just experienced like it is a challenge. >> Yeah. It's uh it's and again it goes back to like understanding what the users want because yes of course they want you know in the disaster situation they want to be back online after makes sense but really they want confidence in that too because at the end of the day >> like they they can't just go okay like you know light you know checkbox went green so therefore I just trust it like we went through a big disaster like how prove it to And it's data. I mean, it's what drives everything above it. Whether you're in retail, whether you're in, you know, pharmacy, banking, finance, the data is the pinnacle of everything. Like if if your data is not right and accurate or or or it's behind, you know, it's it's two days behind, then, you know, it's not the information that you're looking at. You're making decisions that aren't probably as effective >> or completely inaccurate. >> Yeah. Exactly. because of that, right? It's like it could be it's right. It's just that it's behind. So, like now your decision-m process is not as up to speed as it could or should be. So, I guess one a final question from my side, I think, is that um you mentioned you guys are kind of going into different industries and stuff now, which is awesome. I think it's super cool to be able to have technology where you're like, we can see this applicable in many different spots, right? and you start going into these different industries and and you you learn more about them. I guess I'm curious like >> from your perspective being someone who's been kind of riding along with this how when you guys start branching into different markets, different niches like you mentioned like you know shipping and maritime that's very different than >> um than a retail store. How has that kind of changed like the software development like and I don't know if you can answer that simply but I'm curious if you have perspective on on that. >> No, it it is because it was an evolution. I mean the retail was where we started and it was a pretty a pretty similar use case. Obviously it varies but retailer to retailer were you know similar problems and we got real good at those and so good we even added that commerce platform on top like we've got a really nice our own POSOS commerce suite that that sits on top of symmetric because we're we've got so much in-house retail expertise and and that was the natural progression. Um but then as we started like seeing it in other industries like you mentioned the maritime one is amazing because we deal with some of the largest cruise lines in the world and like they will stress test our software in a way that nobody else because they're simulating what really they experience at you know what their vessels experience and and then doing it across the globe. So, so that was another stress level that we hadn't seen on the product and and and it was working f like we were passing tests for them like like they were putting it through their normal process of every application that needs to run in their criteria and we were checking boxes first pass through. So, it was really reassuring to see that that overlaid and and then another industry that really pushed us hard was the financials. Um, we we really started getting into more of the the financial space now and we've got some really big financial outfits that different problems but like you're behind different layers of security now because you start dealing with financial information, financial data without disclosing, you know, full NDA, you know, companies and everything, but you're dealing with a lot of um security that we've never dealt with. I mean you this the security the scans that are happening and the amount of layers that that aren't necessarily applicable to maybe some other businesses. They don't need you know five eight layers of security is sufficient you know if you're if you're working with paint stores or you're working with something else but you know you get into financials and and and they've got their own layers of security that um have really caused us to integrate with a lot more technologies. So we've had to, you know, get into a lot of the new technologies and new security models and stuff that feels like we're spending a lot of hours that aren't even related to data replication. But >> this is this is what I was really curious about, right? Because it seems again I don't I'm not building the software. I'm making a lot of assumptions, but it seems like a lot of what has to happen is that >> you have core like a core infrastructure of of data replication, but when you start branching into other industries, my assumption is that different places will do things slightly different. They might have similar things, but it's a different, you know, suite of tools that you have to integrate with just because it might be more common in finance or they have something else for these other industries. So now you guys are like we have a core thing but in order to connect we have to go spend so much time trying to like get that part of the integration >> that that is representative. >> Yeah. Oh and and the whole the whole product is so driven on configuration that like we've we've built all this in and then you you can configure it so different for and people are like why isn't this just the way? Well, this is your use case, but there are so many use cases when we start explaining like because people get in there like it's it's kind of a Swiss Army knife of like there's all these things. It's a little overwhelming. I just need to go from A to B. Well, that's, you know, understand, but what if you wanted to go there and then you needed to get back again and then recapture or move this or, you know, now we've got to integrate with some layers of security that you didn't think about. And so a lot of it's there and under the hood. And that's where our professional services has been huge because we can get in, we can tune it right into your own use case. And so that's been really helpful um to have that flexibility. >> That's going back to the 17 years of this use case to this use to so many. >> Yeah. I I wanted to to briefly mention that I think that for probably a lot of people again I try to I'm trying to call out little things where I'm like I don't know if people have thought about this uh yet but um I think a lot of people think about when they're building software like I might be a back-end developer or a front-end developer. I'm building a product or a service, but I don't know if a lot of people realize that there are tons of companies that build software that is like like you guys are building a platform that can go be configured for different use cases, right? So, same same infrastructure, but because it's so configurable from one client to the next might look completely different from a configuration. And there is kind of saying this out loud so people that will listen and watch through this understand that there are so many different aspects to software engineering versus just like you have your your product or service. It's like this this world of taking something and reconfiguring it for, you know, similar, you know, fundamental use case but different client could look >> super cool. >> Yeah. It's not cheap to just rebuild another solution for every industry. I I mean, you know, and then you're supporting, you know, a financial product, a you know, a a retail product. So having the same version, it comes with trade-offs, but we're allowed to support and the same core features are available to all those industries rather than kind of building a product per industry and and it but it comes with the, you know, the complexities and so being able to support that wide array. Um, and that's where I I will say our customers have been, so a lot of our long-term customers have been fantastic. We've built relationships with them. they've understood how we work, how we've been flexible, new releases, what we we directly build new releases on what our customers are asking for. So, we're we don't have a, you know, a crystal ball that we're like, oh, this is where the world's going. We drive a lot of our features and functionality of what our customer base is telling us, where they want to take the product, what they could be more effective with. And so that is is super critical to having one core component that's super configurable because we're we're we're very easily able to be dynamic and and scale to the market that that what's coming next. >> Yeah. And like you said though, it comes with trade-offs, right? Like anything in software engineering, there's absolutely trade-offs with it. But I mean in my mind I would think that if you guys are doing it the way you're doing it versus like we want a new customer, go build something from scratch, a new industry, build it from scratch. I'm like h feels like there's a lot of a lot of rework and a lot of lessons that you're going to learn again. So >> yeah. >> Very cool. Well, Josh, I wanted to say thanks so much for for sitting down to chat with me. Um I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add or leave with the audience. And again, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but if you have any parting words with to share with anyone, then that would be great. >> Yeah. No, Nick, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it. Um I I I mean, like I said, it can't I can't thank the company more. Jump mind as a whole. It's a it's a great organization. Um we really do strive on the people aspect, whether it's, you know, whether we're look, you know, if you're looking for a position, we are always hiring, but also on the customer front. We really are in tune with our customers. So if you're looking for a great data replication product, the commerce product, um we've got a lot of things moving. We've got a lot of experience. We've got a lot of life experiences in the real world dealing with these things. So, um, and it it's just a it's a great place to work and we've got a great customer base that's been behind us all the way to get us to where we are. So, thanks again. I really appreciate you having me. >> Of course. And I will repeat it because you did say you guys are hiring, right? So, I'll make sure that I >> Yeah, we're pretty much always hiring. >> Awesome. No, great. Thanks again, Josh. I do really appreciate it. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Bye.