My second co-op was a complete 180 compared to my first. For starters, I was on the other side of the country, in the surprisingly chilly city of San Francisco. Living on the West Coast had been a lifelong dream of mine as far as I can remember. I like to tell myself that California’s allure for me was Silicon Valley but to be honest a large part of it was based solely on having kept up with the Kardashians for 20 seasons. Regardless, by the end of my first co-op I was determined to leave the East Coast for the next one. So that’s exactly what I did. Despite being in the middle of a global pandemic, I moved over 3,000 miles from home to work as a Firmware Engineer for PAX Labs Inc.
To address the elephant in the room, yes PAX is a cannabis vaporizer company. Which is just a fancy roundabout way of saying a weed company. In all honesty, I had some initial reservations going in. I had no idea what firmware meant, let alone whether I even had the skills I needed for this role. Moving across the country where I had no friends or family during COVID-19 was terrifying. Finally, as someone who gives off intense narc energy, it was hard to envision myself working at a weed company. Everything about this opportunity made me uncomfortable, which is exactly why I went for it.
During my 6-months at PAX, I was able to collaborate with 4 other developers through GitHub and Jira to contribute to production level code for upcoming new firmware releases for the PAX Era Pro devices. This entailed debugging and adding embedded C code to rectify LED and haptic bugs from previous releases to improve user experience. Moreover, I got to configure user interface for brand new company features, including one with find my device capabilities! I also played an active role in the weekly bug scrubs, sprint planning, and cross functional synergistic meetings with the app team.
My time at PAX helped refine me as an engineer. I thought I knew the basics of coding prior to working there, but I was wrong. When coding for assignments in school, my goal is to always get something to compile and do the bare minimum before the midnight deadline. Regardless of whether or not it works, I never have to think about it again afterwards. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fly in a professional work setting when collaborating with others. Not only did I need to learn how to write clean and easy to follow code, but I had to be mindful of what the optimal way to preserve memory was. Working on embedded devices with a limited amount of storage meant that I couldn’t go around declaring global variables haphazardly. I also discovered that debugging is an underrated skill. There is an incredible level of patience and willpower needed to stare at the same 8 lines of code for hours on end. Which is often followed with the realization that the solution is a simple power cycle…
Another important skill I picked up on at PAX was Git. If you are anyone who codes even remotely, you have heard of Git and GitHub. You know that being able to comfortably work in both is a viable skill to have. I only mention this because I didn’t even know the basic fundamentals of either until I was forced to use them at PAX. And let me just say – life changing. I can’t imagine ever having to coordinate with other programmers and not utilizing these tools. In addition to learning how Git makes teamwork among developers easier, I picked up on the subtleties associated with creating PRs. If you want someone to approve your work, you need to write a succinct description. Having a friend among your code reviewing peers also doesn’t hurt.
In hindsight, I am eternally grateful for having taken a leap of faith to work at PAX. I have always struggled to find the right balance between hardware and software. Firmware introduced the best of both worlds to me. Additionally, I loved working in the consumer electronics space. It is so rewarding to see something you’ve worked on go into production and be released to the public. However, the biggest thing I’ve taken from PAX is the desire to make the world a better place. PAX’s mission statement is a commitment to help remove the stigma associated with weed. This includes everything from changing the everyday person’s perception of a stoner to freeing the disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated for nonviolent drug charges. PAX made me realize that I too wanted to be a part of something for more than just a weekly paycheck. It helped create my drive to want to use my engineering skills to leave the world a better place than how I found it.