Life at Notable with Samuel Kenney, Engineering

Life at Notable is our employee spotlight series. We use it to highlight the people we’re proud to work with and showcase our company culture. This month, the subject of Life at Notable is Samuel Kenney, a full-stack engineer on the scheduling team. 

Q: How long have you worked at Notable? 

Samuel: I just passed my six-month mark! 

Q: How is Notable different from other places you’ve worked?

Samuel: Since the engineering team here is still pretty lean, there’s a high degree of ownership and autonomy around the product. You get to work with other disciplines outside of engineering and be close to both the product and the customer. And everything we work on is critical to our mission of solving real problems for patients. 

Q: What role are you currently in? Has your role changed?

Samuel: I currently work as a full-stack engineer on the scheduling team. As we have scaled I have spent much more time working on the back-end side of the stack.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about your job? 

Samuel: I love seeing the impact that our work has on everyday people. This was something that took me by surprise and makes what we do very fulfilling. The code we write has an immediate impact on patients’ lives and how they interact with healthcare, which is a responsibility that everyone on the team takes very seriously.

Q: What’s one of the most challenging things about your job? 

Samuel: The engineering team at Notable is at this amazing place where we are working towards scaling while also maintaining a high velocity. This is a balancing act as we plan for every possible way our solutions could be used, while at the same time delivering on our commitments to delight our customers. 

Q: How has the company evolved during your time here? 

Samuel: Just in the past six months, I have noticed and felt how much the engineering team has expanded and matured in how we approach deployments and operations. As our solutions have grown so has our ability to meet a high bar of operational excellence.

Q: What is your favorite food?

Samuel: Any type of curry. Whenever, wherever. 

Q: Are you a morning person or a night person? 

Samuel: If I could choose I would be a morning person. But if we are being honest with ourselves, I'm a night owl through and through.

Q: How do you like to spend your free time? 

Samuel: I am a big outdoor cyclist and love either riding trails or hiking. In the mornings, I spend a lot of time crafting my pour-over coffee, and in the evenings mixing up a cocktail for me and my friends. To relax, I love sitting outside and reading a riveting book (most recently, some lovely poetry by Mary Oliver). 

Q: What’s a skill you want to learn?

Samuel: I’ve been dying to learn a new language that you can speak for quite some time. In high school, I had the opportunity to learn a dead language – Ancient Greek – which was fun but while that was super rewarding I would love to learn a language to use conversationally.

Q: Where did you grow up? 

Samuel: About an hour west of Philadelphia, PA.

Q: What was your dream job when you were a kid?

Samuel: Oddly specific: I have always loved history and wanted to be a Professor of History at William & Mary in Virginia (as a kid I loved visiting Williamsburg). 

Q: If you had a day to plan however you wanted, what would that day look like?

Samuel: Strangely enough, I’ve been having this hankering to stay at a house on the Chesapeake bay for some time away. I would start the day with an almond croissant (my favorite danish), espresso, a bike ride, then reading by the water. Finally, close the evening out by spending time playing games with friends.

‍Q: Is there anywhere you want to travel?

Samuel: The French Riviera. 

Q: What’s a failure you learned from?

Samuel: I feel a failure I learned from was not letting myself be wrong more often. I tend to try to protect myself from looking like I don’t have the answer. So what if I don’t have the right answer? Instead, let yourself fail more frequently. I have found that 1. getting feedback helps you achieve the (better) solution faster and 2. if you ask a question there is most certainly someone else thinking the same thing as you, so you aren’t just helping yourself, but others too. Getting it wrong puts you on the path to getting it right.

Q: What was the last creative thing you did? 

Samuel: I put together a craft cocktail list and bartended my wife’s birthday this past summer.

Q: If you could have a superpower, what would it be? 

Samuel: I love Magneto, so anything he can do. 

‍Q: What are you most proud of? 

Samuel: My wife and I packed up our life in a storage unit and went on a two-month road trip across the country. 8000+ miles and 27 states later I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Q: What are five things that make you happy?

Samuel: 

1. Adventuring with my wife.
2. Good coffee.
3. Traveling (honestly anywhere).
4. Being in nature.
5. Any film made by A24.

Q: If you could add one thing to Notable’s office, what would it be? 

Samuel: An outdoor patio/bar.

‍Q: What’s one thing that surprised you about working at Notable?

Samuel: I was surprised by how connected to the whole company and mission I feel on a daily basis. Our weekly company-wide meetings also help center me on why we are here and how what I do can help others inside and outside the company.  

Q: What’s one thing you learned at Notable that you wouldn’t have learned somewhere else?

Samuel: One thing that I feel other engineers could really enjoy and learn here at Notable is connecting the dots between what we do and how that makes patients’ lives better. Notable makes it very easy to see how your actions impact our mission every day. From my experience, that's not an easy thing to find.

Consider joining our team, to work alongside other passionate and smart people, striving to transform healthcare for the better.

You can see all our open job listings here.