Employee Spotlight: Meet Strickland Swanson

For this month’s Employee Spotlight, we chatted with Strickland Swanson, Senior Solutions Engineer and PETL Employee Resource Group Lead. Strickland started at TripleLift as an intern, see how his career evolved since.?

Q1: Describe your time at TripleLift.

Including my initial internship, I have been with TripleLift for nearly eight years. Over that time, I have had the opportunity to see various Solution teams grow and split, which allowed me to carve a particular path to fit my career development at TripleLift. Seeing the company grow from a small NYC office to a global AdTech powerhouse has been an exciting journey.?

Q2: What's your favorite part about your role?

My favorite part has been the opportunity to take on unique and exciting challenges. The AdTech industry moves so quickly with updated standards and new signals, it keeps the work from ever being dull or repetitive. As TripleLift continues to innovate, there are always more problems to engage with and solve.?

Q3: What’s something most people don’t know about you?

When I moved to New York City, I had plans to continue pursuing my passions for theater and music. Although I discovered a passion for computer science and business development, I was missing a more creative outlet:? I started writing and running tabletop games for groups. It began as a way to connect with friends and express ourselves creatively, but I have since had the opportunity to introduce others to these games and run events for groups looking for their creative outlets. I think these types of creative and collaborative activities are a great way to express oneself, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to share them with others.?

Q4: Can you describe your work experience and what led you to this career path??

I found my internship at TripleLift while beta testing a friend’s job placement app, which was meant to connect college students to companies for short-term projects (2-5 weeks). I came to TripleLift to interview for a role with minimal expectations, and then eight years later, I lead the technical strategy for some of our most strategic clients. When I started as an intern, I had no experience with AdTech. Still, I was allowed to learn about the AdTech industry from a new company looking to carve a unique niche in Native ads. Being able to grow in my career as TripleLift grew its footprint in the industry has been a rewarding experience.?

Q5: Tell us about the most rewarding engineering project you've worked on at TripleLift.?

I have worked on many exciting projects at TripleLift, but the most rewarding projects have always involved cross-team collaboration. We have so many talented people in the engineering organization, and getting a chance to brainstorm or problem-solve with them is always an exciting learning opportunity. Recent interesting collaborations have included building custom adapters for strategic partners, building unique extensions of existing API protocols to cater to a specific client’s needs, and using current products to solve unconventional problems.?

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