Let's get to know each other!

Daniel Judd June 21, 2018

Let's use this thread to introduce ourselves.

If you can highlight where you work, your role and what Atlassian tools you use, this will be a good way for folks to get to know one another.

It's always interesting to know when people got started with Atlassian products. When did you get started? 

26 comments

Comment

Log in or Sign up to comment
Daniel Judd June 21, 2018

Hey All... I'm Daniel Judd and I'm an Atlassian User Group leader here in ATX. Welcome to our online community! 

I work as a Product Manager here in town at a company called Valassis Digital. When I'm not leading two teams through the agile process, I serve as our administrator for Jira, Jira Service Desk and Confluence. I'm an Atlassian Certified Professional (ACP-600) and love the freedom that the tools provide our company. 

We use Jira for traditional software management, tracking advertising campaigns from inception to reporting, HR hiring and on-boarding and even as our meal ordering solution! 

I started using Jira as a software management tool back in 2009 and haven't looked back.  

Like # people like this
Everett Cavazos April 5, 2021

Do you host or know of any Atlassian get-togethers? I'm a Jira and Confluence Cloud Admin for a company here in ATX. In my last role I was Jira/Confluence Data Center admin. Just looking for ways to exercise my Jira skills outside of the office. I'll be going for my Jira Admin cert hopefully sometime later this year or next.

Like Deleted user likes this
Jack Brickey
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 21, 2018

Great idea @Daniel Judd!

I work at a company based out of Plano called Fortress Solutions and Fortress UAV. I am the VP of Engineering but oversee a number of areas including IT, NPI and internal business SW development. You can learn more about me on my LI page. My current company uses Cloud instances including Jira SW, Service Desk, Confluence, Stride and a few addons. Cloud works quite well for the number of users (100+) and how we use the tools.

I began using Atlassian products about six years ago I think. I have introduced them into 3 different companies and helped administer them. Over those years I have received a great deal of assistance from the Atlassian Community and as a result I became quite active and contributed back, resulting in my community champion badge. I am also a member of the Austin AUG and try to attend when I can but travel seems to interfere quite a bit unfortunately. 

I attended my first Summit last year and will be attending this year as well.

Question for the group - do we have a Stride channel set up? Is there a need/desire?

Like # people like this
Celina Zamora July 3, 2018

Hey Jack! We don't have a Stride channel for this group, but this will be a solid place for everyone to connect in the meantime :) 

Carson Taylor June 21, 2018

I'm a mobile games producer at Zynga's Austin studio. I practically live in Jira, which we use to manage all tasks relating to development and ongoing support of multiple games. Looking forward to hearing about how others use Jira and other Atlassian products!

Like Emily Koch likes this
Celina Zamora June 21, 2018

Hey Carson, welcome to the group and Atlassian Community! 

Jay Reyes June 21, 2018

Hello, I'm a Technical Support Engineer for Tricentis. We have been using JIRA for DevOps but what I'm most interested in is Confluence for all departments. I have novice experience in both products and eager to learn more. I've co-designed the structure our Support space.

Celina Zamora June 21, 2018

Welcome Jay! 

Jeff Skipper June 21, 2018

Greetings !

I'm Jeff Skipper, a software engineer, process quality engineer, Scrum Master, and agile enthusiast.  I'm a big fan of Atlassian products.  I have been a member of the Austin AUG group for a while... I love the meetings, they are always well done and informative!  Big shout out to all the AUG leaders who make this happen!

looking forward to continued learning and collaboration!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffskipper/

Celina Zamora June 21, 2018

Welcome Jeff!!! 

Patrick Wilson June 21, 2018

Hi everyone.  I'm Patrick Wilson, admin/manager of the Confluence-based technical docs platform docs.bmc.com at BMC Software.  I've also been a member of the Austin AUG for some time and find the meetings very instructive.  Great to have our own page here in the Atlassian Community.

Celina Zamora July 3, 2018

Welcome @Patrick Wilson

Philip Cushing June 21, 2018

Good day all, Philip Cushing here. JIRA Software (cloud) is the tool that I have been learning to admin since February. Probably the newest on the block when it comes to experience with the suite of tools from Atlassian. 

We have been an Agile shop here for the last 6 years and for the first 5 of that were narrowly focused with the SAFe methodology using another tool for tracking our teams work. I even became an RTE under that umbrella. 

I am really here to learn from those who use the tool(s). Another software that I administer has a phenomenal user group and for the last 4 years, I learned a tremendous amount from that group regarding that platform. 

Cheers.
~PC

Ashley Elder
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
June 21, 2018

Welcome @Philip Cushing. We'd love to hear what makes the other user groups you attend so valuable and make sure we've incorporated that into Atlassian User Groups!

Amanda {Praecipio} June 21, 2018

Howdy, y'all!

I'm Amanda Babb and I'm a Principal Consultant at Praecipio Consulting. I am so excited to be part of the community! 

I've been working in the tools for 5+ years now and I cannot tell y'all how much I have learned and continue to learn from the community. Aside from helping folks implement the Atlassian stack, I have a Cloud instance of Jira and Confluence that I use to manage my household: everything from home renovations to grocery lists. My husband drew the line at Team Calendars though. Apparently that was too much information about my travel schedule. :/ 

Looking forward to our shared learning experience! Thanks! -a 

Like # people like this
Celina Zamora July 3, 2018

Hey @Amanda {Praecipio}, we are always happy to have Praecipio onboard and supporting our ATX AUG. 

Amanda {Praecipio} July 3, 2018

:awthanks: @Celina Zamora!

Jen DeAngelo June 25, 2018

Hey all - longtime lurker here. I'm Jen DeAngelo and I'm a remote IT project manager specializing in enterprise content management software implementations. I jump companies every couple of years, but currently am with Tahzoo out of DC area. This is my... third?... company for which I'm an Atlassian champion, politely forcing everyone to embrace Confluence, JIRA, and (slowly, but surely, and don't call me Shirley) Stride. I love documentation because I can't remember much of anything, but can always find what I need quickly in Atlassian tools. 

Glad to be allowed to lurk in the background - I learn lots from the group!

Like # people like this
Erica Moss
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
June 25, 2018

@Jen DeAngelo Glad to see you diving in here, Jen! Welcome. 😄

Ashley Elder
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
June 25, 2018

Hi @Jen DeAngelo,

Welcome and thanks for sharing! It is awesome to hear that you are such a champion of Atlassian. I love the concept of "politely forcing" your teams to embrace Confluence & Jira, and I know many others here try to do the same. Do you have any best practices or go-to's to get buy in from your teams?

Also, A++ on the Airplane quote :)

Jen DeAngelo June 26, 2018

Nothing specific, Ashley. It's really just trying to determine who decision-makers are in each company, and then proving the worth of Atlassian tools in their language - such as ROI for someone who's budget-conscious, or evening up workloads for developers to appeal to a manager - just finding proof that speaks to the person, 

Jason Casey June 25, 2018

Hey all,

I manage the Technical Support team for Evernote here in Austin. I've been using Jira and Confluence lightly for years. Our devs use Jira to track development and our technical support team is in Jira submitting bugs and feature requests for triage. We also use Confluence to track trending issues for the larger customer support team.

I'm working now on mastering dashboard creation and JQL to create better reporting on customer reported issues and feature requests. 

Do any of you recommend a Jira certification for my use case? They seem more admin driven. I'd love to get any tips you experts have to offer. Looking forward to learning more!

Like Tim Keyes likes this
Tim Keyes
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
January 10, 2020

I can see this is an older post but, I personally really enjoyed the Jira Project Admin cert and thought it provided an excellent balance of Project administration and day to day activities in Jira.  You can also take the certification test online instead of at a testing center.

There is a ton of free training now including JQL training that can be found here:

https://training.atlassian.com/free-training-catalog?_ga=2.69353872.1687847255.1577651593-1848321665.1574541955&_gac=1.45813648.1578716030.EAIaIQobChMIuJeiqtf65gIVhIXICh3__QXZEAAYASAAEgKInvD_BwE

Like Ben Thoma likes this
Wiley Koepp June 26, 2018

I'm a web developer at Mighty Citizen, where the dev team mostly builds and maintains PHP-based CMS-driven websites. Right now, we're only using HipChat. But in my previous role at UT Austin, I managed the campus-wide instance of Confluence (w/a few thousand users) and was a daily JIRA user. I'm a big fan of Atlassian products and enjoy keeping an eye out for new product releases and updates...just in case we may be able to integrate something new into my current endeavors.

Like Tim Keyes likes this
Deleted user July 27, 2018

Hello, I'm a Program Manager working for a Financial Services Startup here in Austin and focused on Agile way of running projects/programs. I'm a big fan of Atlassian Suite and use them for my day to day activities. We use Atlassian Integrations into Aha (Product Management tool), TestRails(Testing tool where all the test cases reside), looking into Salesforce Integration as well. 

Like Emily Koch likes this
Mahesh S
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
August 7, 2018

Hello everyone! I'm a Senior Analyst at Lenovo. My role is Atlassian Expert and Java developer. I have been playing around with Atlassian tools like JIRA, Bitbucket and Confluence for the past four years. Well, that's my short description. 

Like Emily Koch likes this
Monique vdB
Community Manager
Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities. Feel free to say hello!
October 4, 2018

Welcome @Renee McKechnie@Philip Heijkoop _ALM Works_, and @Jennifer Kinard! Please introduce yourself below if you'd like!

Like Emily Koch likes this
Philip Heijkoop _ALM Works_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
October 8, 2018

Hello all,

I'm a solutions engineer at ALM Works, we make the Structure for Jira app. I love the sense of community in the Jira ecosystem and am always on the look out for new use-cases and challenges people face with it. Obviously, I'm open to any questions people have (related to Structure or otherwise).

Like Emily Koch likes this
Fernando Bordallo
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
January 10, 2020

Hello everyone!

My name is Fernando Bordallo. I'm an Atlassian team lead, dedicated full-time to the improvement of the experiences around issue creating, interaction and flow. My main areas of interest lie in understanding how ideas come to life through collaboration, planning, and execution.

I started using Jira as a developer and have since moved back and forth between planner and IC. Confluence came to me later, a couple years after my first encounter with Jira. I loved it!

Nice to be here 😄

Like # people like this
Tim Keyes
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
January 10, 2020

Hi Everyone!

I started at AgileCraft 2 years ago as a support engineer and am now a Premier Support Engineer working on Jira Align.  The acquisition has been quite a journey so far!

I spend my time between our Atlassian office downtown, the Jira Align office in Georgetown, and my apartment in South Austin.

I am excited to follow the group!  It appears like I missed the event today but am excited for the next one!

Like # people like this
Fernando Bordallo
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 5, 2020

I'm looking forward to meeting you face to face (summit maybe ;) ) and hearing your side of the story on the acquisition :)

Like Emily Koch likes this
Emily Koch
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 5, 2020

Hi everyone! I also started at AgileCraft two years ago as a support engineer, but now I'm a Content Designer working on Jira Align. I'm based out of North Austin, but also work out of our Georgetown and downtown offices.

I'm definitely most familiar with Jira Align and, more recently, Trello, but am learning more about Confluence and Jira every day! It's great to meet you and I look forward to getting to know everyone.

Like # people like this
Jeff Skipper February 6, 2020

Welcome @Emily Koch @Fernando Bordallo @Tim Keyes  Glad to see you here, looking forward to meeting at a future ACE !

Like Emily Koch likes this
Rachel Richardson February 24, 2020

Hey everyone! Long time Atlassian dev, new to the Austin area! I'm joining Samsung Austin Semiconductor as an Atlassian expert to help guide best practices and help the team implement the suite in the best way possible. I hail originally from the Houston, Texas area (so not too far off), but surprisingly never made my way west until now!

I'm excited to join y'all at the next meeting!

Like Ross Diaz likes this
Ross Diaz February 3, 2021

Hi everyone! I am a Technical Writer (Confluence jockey) and I have been a member of the Austin AUG and helped found the San Antonio AUG back in 2016 as well as attended Summit that year. Unfortunately the San Antonio AUG shuttered after I moved away to Seattle for 3 years. Now I am back in San Antonio and still working with Jira and Confluence. Will try and make my way to Austin for future AUG events.

Everett Cavazos April 5, 2021

How can I join the Austin AUG?

Everett Cavazos April 5, 2021

Hello everyone, my name is Everett. I'm a Jira and Confluence Cloud Admin for a company here in ATX. In my last role I was Jira/Confluence Data Center admin.

I'm looking for ways to exercise my Jira skills outside of the office and find other people to geek out with on Atlassian stuff! I'll be going for my Jira Admin cert hopefully sometime later this year or next.

WW
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
April 16, 2021

I live in San Antonio and attended a meeting or two, but the group here seems to have disappeared.  I'm not opposed to visiting or even moving to Austin.  @Ross Diaz , if you're looking to restart the San Antonio AUG, I'll join. :)

I work at a very large, global, financial company.  I've been working from home since before COVID-19.

I'm an Atlassian admin working with Jira Server, Service Desk, and Confluence.  We'll be moving to Data Center some time later this year.

I'm a Confluence (server) guru.  I know the ins and outs and am a certified Confluence admin.  I write User Macros and scripts in ScriptRunner (Jira and Confluence).  I know a lot about the Atlassian REST APIs as well.  I only wish the Java APIs were as well documented.

I'm good at Jira, too (planning to get my cert in Jun 2021), but everybody else seems to be more Jira focused.  Nobody else seems to know Confluence that well, in our entire company of, let's just say a whole lotta people.  I think Jira admins think that Confluence is easy, so they don't explore its rich features. But when they go to use it, they treat it like SharePoint <ugh>. It's not structured like a database like Jira, and it requires lots of creative thinking and organizational skills to create and maintain an inviting and useful space.

So if you're creative, can write somewhat ok, and like to experiment, start digging in to what Confluence has to offer.  It's not all about Jira.

Wow, that took an unexpected turn.  I'll step down from my soapbox now. :)

Anyhow, I'm interested to see what the ATX AUG is up to.

stephen.thomas July 13, 2021

Hi All. I lead Sales and Success at Reciprocity (www.reciprocitylabs.com). We are a SaaS based GRC platform that integrates with Jira SM. Here at Recirprocity we use Jira SM, Confluence, and Trello actively date for our Sales and Success Teams.  Active user but not an admin ;)

We've been using Atlassian's portfolio of products since we started Reciprocity. I've been using Jira SM, Confluence, and Trello for the last 5-years at different companies.

Look forward to getting engaged with the Community.

DocuWerx March 13, 2022

Hey, y'all! My name is Costa, a former CSM, and PMP in Software Development, or the state. After fifteen years in the industry, in Q4 of 2021, I quit my director role, and I intended to change my field of work. 

However, I am back to Software Development, but this time with my own company, with a solution to a new problem in a newly re-vamped industry, Remote Online Notarization (RON). 

One day I had the opportunity to stay home and have all of my documents remotely notarized. Immediately, I saw so many gaps, risks, and broken procedures within a platform that I had no clue how it operated. It didn't take me long to figure it out.

Since November 2021, I learned the process, researched the requirements, coordinated all the efforts, formalized my business entity. Last week, I hired a dev team, and development for a truly intuitive, affordable, high-quality platform is coming to reality. 

If anyone is interested in learning more, reach out. 

TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events