Behind the Flame: Sam Willis

Welcome to Behind the Flame, a series created to showcase our incidentios.

Meet Sam Willis, Product Designer here at incident.io.

Q: What has been your favorite incident.io memory so far?

The On-call launch was something we worked on for close to six months and it was great having it launched and out there for customers to start using it. A fun memory has to be when we played a company game of football at our recent off-site in Marseille, despite the several injuries it was a lot of fun.

Q: What is something that surprised you when you joined?

I was surprised at how much everyone invested in the design process across the business. Whether it's the founders dropping in feedback, attending polish parties, feedback to Customer Success, or even our customers, Everyone has lots of opinions and leaves us lots of feedback which we factor in whenever we're working on new stuff.

Q: What is the value that most resonates with you?

Make it magic. As designers, we love making things magic whether it's adding animations or little details. That's just kind of what we do!

Q: What is something that you are excited or proud to have worked on?

Something that I'm proud to have worked on at incident.io is the logo. I did it about two years before I joined as a sort of favor for my pal Pete (incident.io Co-founder & CTO) and it's cool seeing it in neon everywhere in the office.

Q: What is your favorite benefit?

It has to be the last Friday of the month–who wouldn't like 12 extra long weekends across the year? The last Friday of the month means more time with my family. It's one of the perks of working at incident.io—we get 12 extra long weekends throughout the year!

Q: What is your favorite Slack channel?

The deal channels, because there's always some drama going on and I like to keep up to date with those.

Q: What is one piece of advice you would give yourself on your first day?

Take the time to let things sink in, there's a lot to learn as the product is very complex. Take it all in, be a sponge.

Q: What advice would you give to candidates interviewing?

Emphasize projects where you've had to move fast or make trade-offs to get something done well but within the time frame.

Q: How would you describe the culture in three words?

It would be pace, magic, and vibes.

Q: What incident.io employee would you like to be stuck in a lift with?

Norberto, because he's extremely calm under pressure, seemingly unflappable and I think he'd figure a way to get us out of there.

Q: What is it like being part of the Design team at incident.io?

One of the good things about being on the Design team at incident.io is how collaborative we are with the other disciplines from road mapping through to user testing, development, and delivery. We work together throughout the process, which is great.

Q: How does Design collaborate with other departments in the business?

One thing I like about being on the Design team here is how collaborative we are with people across the business. Whether it's Product Engineering, Data, or going further afield to Customer Success, we work with people at all stages of projects and customer life cycles and that's great.

Q: If you were to work on another team for the day, what team would you join and why?

I think it'd be the Technical Support team, it'd be really interesting seeing the conversations they're having with customers and how they're solving problems and using the product.

Q: Why do you think companies need a reliable incident management tool?

One of the key reasons companies need a reliable incident management tool is that not only do we help you manage the incidents as they're happening, but also with the insights we give, you can see how much time you're spending on incidents versus building the next cool new feature.

Q: What are you most looking forward to with incident.io and this year and beyond?

The work we're going to be doing this year on Insights. We're going to be adding a lot more support and more actionable insights for people using On-call.