Self-proclaimed Nelson computer geek Evan Brynne always knew he wanted to work with computers.
“Even when I was a kid my parents were really involved with computers, so I was always playing around with desktops and laptops. I’d play with them in my free time, try installing Windows, write little websites,” said the 24-year-old Kootenay tech engineer, who is now working at Twitter, one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
“I always found it really enabling to be able to build something other people can play with. You have so much agency.”
Brynne was thrilled to land the job at Twitter, and said he’s excited to go to work every day.
“It’s amazing. I come in to work and I play with problems. I work on Twitter for business products. One of my team’s projects is the tweet activity dashboard, which displays statistics on organic and promoted tweet activity. It’s how users can learn from the success of their tweets to be more effective tweeters. My team builds all of that,” he said.
“By and large it’s a whole bunch of logic puzzles. You have these complex tools that interact with each other in well-defined ways, and I need to find the most effective way to combine them,” he said.
“There are always environmental complexities you have to learn to work around. You have all these tools and you have to use them to create an optimal solution,” he said.
Brynne said he finds his work fulfilling.
“I’m interested in the global candid conversation it offers. Anything I want to learn about, it’s my go-to tool for gathering public perception of something. In a kind of abstract sense Twitter creates this community where you can converse on every topic. Even as a passive user, you always have access to amazing content about things you care about that are happening in the world,” he said.
“We’re living in an ever-more inter-connected world and I’ve always been a strong proponent of online socialization,” he said.
When he was in elementary school, Brynne started a club called Geek Club. Along with a number of friends, he created a text-based fantasy world where they could exist and interact.
“We built this little world. We just sat on computers and hung out in this world we built, and we could program our own objects, houses,” he said.
And if this sounds like a science fiction movie to you, or if you don’t understand how exactly his job works, then you’re not alone.
“A lot of my family and friends have no idea what I do. They can’t even understand the concept of Twitter. They just say ‘oh, he works for one of those tech companies’,” he said. “But they’re proud of me, of course.”
Brynne credited two of his teachers, Cathy Spears and Brian Simpson, for fostering his love of technology and encouraging him to pursue his dreams. He said they encouraged him and supported him in invaluable ways.
That’s given him the opportunity to participate in a technology that is drastically improving worldwide communication and the dissemination of knowledge.
“Twitter as a platform is designed around and brings forth a discourse that’s immediate, global and isn’t offered anywhere else. We’ll start seeing more and more immediacy in the global accumulation of knowledge. For instance, if something happens in a politically hot place, the whole world will know about it right away,” he said.
“I have a direct hand it that. It’s very empowering.”
You can follow Evan on Twitter @evanbrynne.