Let’s Get Digital this week with our next employee spotlight – Mary Hoette. Our Let’s Get Digital segment features staff members from different departments around the office. Teamwork makes the dream work, and our employees know how to get the job done!
Mary is a website and application developer at Vervocity. She joined our team in October 2024 and has successfully worked on problem-solving and developing multiple client projects.
Let’s explore her passion for programming, and discover what it means to be a website and application developer.
1. What inspired you to pursue a degree in Application Development and Design?
I was interested in programming because I like figuring out how to make things work.
Whenever I work on a programming problem, it feels like I’m solving a puzzle, but I don’t know which pieces I will need to complete the picture. When I toured Quincy University, I met with the head of Computer Science and he told me about their Application Development and Design degree which combined computer science and graphic design majors into one. It allowed me to focus more on the front end user experience which I am very interested in.
2. How did you get started in web and app development?
I took my first programming class my senior year of high school. Because the school messed up schedules and there were too many people in one class, I ended up being in a weird online class where I would call in to another high school that was having an in-person class.
We made very simple games apps, but I was always so excited for them.
3. As a recent college graduate, what’s something you’ve learned at Vervocity that you didn’t expect?
I didn’t realize how often I’d reference my previous projects to figure out current problems. I did it a bit as a student, but most of the time I would try to figure it out on my own again before looking at previous assignments.
Leaving notes for myself on how exactly I got something to work is a lot more helpful than trying to memorize it and possibly forgetting things. I created a spreadsheet of common problems that I’ve figured out or fixed, so I can go back and look at it when I get stuck.
4. How do you balance the technical and creative sides of your role?
Balancing the technical and creative sides of my role isn’t something I consciously do. It was always interesting in college how and where my graphic design and computer science classes overlapped. The processes are different, but they have similar goals. The creative points normally dictate WHAT I am doing to solve a problem. What do I need to get across to the user? What is the most effective way to do that? The technical aspect is HOW I am going to do it.
For Example: What am I going to do? I need to make a table that takes information from this form and compares it against all other responses. How am I going to do that? I’m going to query all the entries from the form and loop through each response, gathering the information they provide and making my own functions to compare them.
5. How do you stay motivated and inspired when working on long-term projects?
I always like to break down bigger projects into smaller bits, so it still feels like I’m getting things done. I might work for several hours on a project, but instead of feeling like I still have so much to do before the project is done, I can see the three smaller things I’ve crossed off my list.
6. What does an average workday look like for you?
Normally I have a couple big projects going on at a time, so I pick one to work on before lunch and one to work on after lunch. These projects involve using plugins and custom code to build functionality for a website. I like to really focus and get in the weeds on a project for long periods at a time.
Throughout the day, I also work on tickets clients put in. These can be things like adding a new page to a website or fixing a form not sending the correct emails. It’s nice to have smaller things like this to check off my list, and it also helps me get a fresh set of eyes when I come back to a project.
7. What do you like most about working at Vervocity?
I like getting to know how to do things better and better the longer I work on them. I’ve had a couple of websites I’ve worked on that look very complicated at the start, but as I work on a project for them they become less and less intimidating. Even across sites, I’ve worked with certain plugins like Advanced Custom Fields and WooCommerce enough that I feel very comfortable with using them on any website. I like being able to ask questions and build myself this well of knowledge that I keep referencing.
8. What advice would you give to someone interested in a career in website or graphic design?
It will be very frustrating sometimes when you know how it SHOULD work, but you can’t quite get it right. You need to be able to step away and do something else before coming back to it.
Especially in programming, it is very easy to lose the forest for the trees and not understand why something isn’t working, only for you to come back an hour later to realize the part that had the error was completely different from where you were looking.
9. What is a fun fact about yourself?
I did color guard for seven years (seven marching band seasons and four winter guard seasons). During my very first season, I dropped my flag at just the right force and angle that I permanently dented my skull right next to my eye.
10. What would you say to potential clients interested in hiring an agency for professional website design, graphic design, or custom applications?
Companies like Vervocity that do website design, graphic design, or custom applications have experience to know what works and how to solve problems more efficiently. Independent companies that do not specialize in web design, graphic design or custom applications can do it themselves, but it is very easy to get in over your head. I’ve been in over my head several times since I’ve started working here, but I’ve had people to help get me out of it.
It is easy to break something and not know how to get it back to the way it was when you didn’t know how it worked in the first place. Hiring a company like Vervocity saves you a lot of hassle, especially when you want to be able to focus on your actual business.
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