It was an easy decision for me to join the Agrilyst team earlier this year. I love my job. The product design work is challenging and indoor agriculture is an exciting industry.

Just as important, I am happy because Agrilyst is a team of thoughtful, diverse, and compassionate professionals who really care about what we are doing. With so many discussions about ethics in technology lately, it’s important for a company to define and stick to core values — and Agrilyst truly does that.

My favorite of Agrilyst’s core values is: “we are a data company who believes in people.” This means although we use technology and data to solve problems, we are ultimately people-driven. We want growers to thrive; we want them to feel secure and at ease. It’s why we exist, and it drives everything we do.

Believing in people means a lot of things for Agrilyst in our everyday work. It means we listen to growers with open ears. We visit farms and get to know the folks who use Agrilyst not as merely our customers, but as humans. We recognize that every Agrilyst user and every facility is different — with varying processes, needs, and concerns.

This grower-centered attitude feeds directly into our product design process: the best way to get things right with our software is to base our decisions on real people’s needs.

My role as our User Experience Designer means I spend a lot of time talking to growers about their daily operations, how they use Agrilyst, and how they believe Agrilyst could evolve to become even more helpful. We even ask growers for feedback on feature ideas before we build them. I love being part of a company that focuses so much on the people using our product.

Chatting with growers is also, honestly, fun. I always walk away from a grower meeting feeling happier than I did before. I enjoy the opportunity to learn new things about the industry, and I get to help translate grower needs into software features. I feel grateful to work on expanding and improving Agrilyst, and our users often share that enthusiasm.

I have a PhD in Human Factors Psychology and a background in applied research, so I have very positive relationships with both data and people. Numbers and feelings. Technology and humans. I love my job with Agrilyst because I get to feel proud of our work and the relationships we have with our users. (And as a bonus, now I get to care about plants, too!)