Ibotta Talks

An interview with Rosanne Ussery — Platform Engineer & cultural leader

Elisa Faller (EF): Rosanne, thank you so much for joining us! It’s not a stretch to say that you are respected throughout the company not only for your work contributions, but also for your voice and advocacy. What do you love most about being an engineer? How have your life experiences impacted the way you approach your work?

Rosanne Ussery (RU): I love problem solving, both as an engineer and an advocate, both of which tie into my previous life in law enforcement. Prior to becoming a software developer, I worked as a student officer for two years, then as a dispatcher for thirteen. As a student officer, I chased drunks, broke up domestic violence situations, and held the perimeter on riots. When I moved into dispatch, I learned how a little compassion and calm could make a late night 9-1-1 call a little bit better for someone needing help on the worst night of their lives.

Working in that high-stress environment taught me a lot of life skills such as how to operate well under stress, why internal and external customer service are vital to an organization, and also how to solve problems that affect people’s lives. It also taught me the importance of compassion and why inclusion can make or break a company or organization.?

Now that I’m a software engineer, I have taken those skills to my current line of work. The problems I’m solving as an engineer at Ibotta aren’t life or death, but they still can affect the ease of people’s lives and the quality of their experience with our products. Making people’s lives better and easier is still an objective that serves as my north star, and by working on the Monolith squad (Monolith squad maintains, updates, and improves Ibotta's old school infrastructure), I am given a unique opportunity to help both our external customers and make work easier for my fellow Ibottans, especially as it applies to the Monolith and our internal repositories, documentation, and processes.

Being a dispatcher in a previous life also encouraged me to learn listening skills and hear the “story behind the story”. It made me deeply invested in user stories and the “why” of the work we do. Given a good “why”, I feel we can accomplish anything to make a great product and at Ibotta, our “why” comes out in so many ways that help people and make their lives better and more rewarding.

The work that comes with being an engineer at Ibotta is often to solve the “how” for the “why” and here I feel I am given the agency and opportunity to find amazing and fun solutions to the problems we want to solve. I love working with my teammates to collaborate and find the answers to the challenges that we face trying to make every purchase rewarding.

EF: One of the topics we have been discussing a lot lately is authentic leadership, along with generally being our authentic selves in the workplace. As a cultural leader within the company, what efforts have you made towards this? What have you learned along the way?

RU: Honestly, Ibotta is one of the first places I have felt that I have had the safety to be my authentic self. For someone who has had to hide or minimize who I am in most of my work, coming to Ibotta was an amazing experience because I could see other people like me being out and proud and also accepted by everyone else, no matter our differences. My goal is to make everyone feel as welcomed here as I have been, no matter their race, creed, gender identity, or any identity. We are all different in our own ways and no one’s varied and intersectional identities conform completely to what is considered to be the “norm.” At Ibotta, I want to encourage us to celebrate those differences and show how by including everyone, we become stronger. The more diverse voices we bring to the table, the more good ideas we can have and those ideas can, indeed, come from anyone.

One of the main lessons I have learned along the way is that listening is one of the most important tools in our toolkit. It is so important to listen to not just what people say, but how they say it, and to ask questions to understand the intent, context, and background of the individual to better understand the experience they bring to the table. Everyone has something to contribute, and the more we listen, the more we can learn from each other and grow stronger together. Listening, especially to people different from ourselves, opens up a wide world of possibilities, increased understanding, and a knowledge of the pitfalls and problems other folks experience that we may be unaware of. This applies not only to people of different races or gender identities than ourselves, but also people with different life experiences.

EF: You have been a huge advocate for inclusivity at Ibotta. What are 3 ways that you think people can be more inclusive in the way they approach their daily work and communications?

RU: The first way is to pay attention to how other people are encouraged to contribute in meetings, 1:1s, and group activities. Is everyone brought to the table, no matter their identity? Are you ensuring that women and nonbinary people have the same opportunities to contribute as men? Have you paid attention to how some people talk over others who aren’t like them? Are you aware of how people of color are often also spoken over or their ideas disregarded? What about people who you know are queer or have another identity that is different from heteronormativity or cisnormativity? When you start to pay attention, you might notice there is a difference in how others are treated, which then gives you an opportunity to be an ally, an advocate, and an accomplice.

Another way to be more inclusive is to be an active ally, or as I like to say, an accomplice. Allyship is more than just slapping an “ally” label on your Facebook profile during Pride or making a post that says you are a “safe” person. You have to prove through your actions and through your choices that you are an ally and a safe person. Words are great, but actions are more useful, and I feel that by framing our actions as “accomplice” actions, we emphasize that we are working with marginalized individuals to be more inclusive and to make a more equitable world. This encourages us to listen to their needs and their experiences, making the allyship more about how we can help them, rather than how we can make ourselves feel better.

Finally, our actions don't need to be huge displays of fervent allyship or grand demonstrations. We can do small things in our lives to make more people feel included in our daily activities. Small things such as putting your pronouns on your email to normalize sharing them or removing language like “guys” and “dude” from your vocabulary when referring to groups that are not just men (and don’t make assumptions about how someone identifies their gender). Finally, you can actively practice putting yourself in other peoples’ shoes. Practice active listening (as I mentioned earlier) and take opportunities to learn about other peoples’ experiences, whether it be by listening to podcasts, attending lectures, reading articles, or otherwise spending some time learning about people different from you. It is important that we as allies do the work and not just expect marginalized individuals to let us know when things go wrong or when there are microaggressions or outright aggressions.

EF: “What’s next” has been up for debate in the professional community, specifically with companies starting to announce their return to office plans. What are you most excited for in this next chapter for both the professional landscape and for your own career growth?

RU: I am a very big extrovert (to no one’s surprise), so I am definitely looking forward to being back in the office and seeing some folks in “3D”. However, I am also very excited to start working with people across the country as well as in Denver. I think it will be amazing to see how Ibotta conquers the technological, cultural, and logistical challenges of having a hybrid environment and becomes a leader in hybrid work not only in Denver but across the country.

As for myself, I am thrilled with the plethora of opportunities to grow professionally at Ibotta. I feel like I am provided ways to learn every day and grow as a software developer to not only give the savers a good experience, but also to increase engineer productivity through improving the Monolith, implement new technologies to make the Monolith easier to use, and streamline the processes and procedures we use to be the best company we can be. Also as a member of the Documentation Guild at Ibotta, I am very invested in making sure we all have the information we need to do our jobs well and efficiently. Finally, with Webotta, I am excited to bring more opportunities to build inclusion, diversity, and equity at Ibotta.