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Employee Spotlight: Cesar Gonzalez

What motivates you to wake up every morning and make an impact at Honorlock?

My motivation to ensure that I am doing my best each day with Honorlock comes from a variety of sources. In large part, I’m motivated by the fantastic team members that I work with each day. Their desire to make our product as successful as it can be helps push my own motivation forward. I also find that the work we do within Honorlock is very challenging and rewarding to implement. We handle so many unique topics and goals within the realm of what we are attempting to accomplish with our application. 

What are your main responsibilities at Honorlock?

I work as a software developer on the external personal team, The Outpost, for the Product and Engineering Department of Honorlock. My main responsibilities include researching, planning, and developing solutions to address features and bug fixes required for Honorlock’s online proctoring software. At the moment, I work very closely with the front end of our tech stack. This usually involves handling UI development, making sure the UX of our application is built to the specifications of our designers, and working toward making sure our work is taking accessibility into account. 

What has been your favorite project so far?

My favorite project that I’ve helped develop at Honorlock so far has been the student toolbar. I was given the opportunity to helm that project starting with a hackathon week that was held by the engineering department in March of this year. The development goals for the toolbar came from a desire for minimizing end-user confusion on elements such as the calculator or exam guidelines that were somewhat inaccessible to users after launching an exam. It’s easily the most complex piece of code that I’ve written in my career, and I always relish the opportunity to jump back into that part of the codebase to make improvements.

What’s something most people at Honorlock don’t know about you?

I am a huge advocate for discussing mental health issues and helping to destigmatize the conversation around mental health in our society. As an individual who has had their fair share of mental health struggles throughout their life, I make sure to not shy away from discussion about concerns such as depression, anxiety, burnout, and others. Thankfully, I’m at a point in life where my own mental health issues have been quelled, and I feel comfortable opening up about how I have dealt with them throughout life. Equally, this attitude is what helps motivate me to keep in consideration topics that Honorlock tries to address on a daily basis, such as alleviating student test anxiety when working with our application. 

What do you love most about being part of the Honorlock team?

I love how supportive our team members are of each other and the open collaboration between team members that occurs daily. I feel that I have the pleasure of working with some of the most intelligent individuals in our industry, and know that I always have someone to back me up. It all amounts to building a fantastic team culture that is inviting, caring, and helps motivate the day to day of what we are attempting to accomplish. 

How has your career grown since starting at Honorlock?

My career has grown exponentially since starting at Honorlock. I joined Honorlock with the goal of working in a more technical role. At my previous companies, I was working as a lead developer for small teams and helming many of the projects that those companies contracted. Those opportunities helped round out my soft skill set, as I was constantly in charge of various duties such as project management, hiring, and consulting with clients along with my technical duties. That said, working in such a jack-of-all trades position didn’t allow me to grow as quickly as I’d like in a technical manner. My role at Honorlock has allowed me to develop my technical skill set quickly. I’m very happy with the amount of knowledge I’ve acquired around both front end and back end technologies.

What are you most excited about in your future with Honorlock?

I’m most excited about some of the projects that we have in the pipeline at Honorlock. Our leadership team has planned some significant projects that will push me to learn more about topics such as web extension development and mobile application development. The goals we are attempting to accomplish align directly with my interests in becoming a better software engineer. As a result, I can’t help but be excited about the kind of work I will be doing at Honorlock in the near future.