As one of the earliest engineers at Magnet Forensics, Nick Cosentino helped shape much of the engineering culture and software for the 8 years he worked there.
Background At Magnet Forensics, I lead an awesome team of people with the mission of creating forensics software to help investigators around the world solve crimes. We're stacked with incredible people--and not only on the team I'm on, but company-wide. We do a great job of recognizing our achievements as an organization and as a team, but also on an individual level. If someone has gone above and beyond, we don't keep that a secret. I've been trying to make more of a conscious effort to recognize the people I work with, especially in ways that are unique to my own style. I think recognizing people in person is important, but you also need to consider your setting. Sometimes recognition in a public forum isn't actually appreciated or isn't nearly as effective as appreciating in a one-on-one setting. I find…
Mini Update Just thought I'd get a quick one out there to say I'm still here. To be honest, I haven't kept up to speed with my weekly updates or even sharing articles on social media like I try to do on a regular basis. But that's just how life has been the past few weeks, and there's no sense beating myself up over it. Time to acknowledge it, and time to push forward. Work has kept me swamped with things to do. I've been busier than normal the past few weeks and it's largely due to things going on at work. But I'm not complaining. I actually prefer times at work when I feel nearly overwhelmed. The added pressure (whether artificially inflated by my own doing or not) really helps me buckle down and become productive. It's a great…
Charity Water We have a lot of pretty awesome people at Magnet Forensics, and every day I'm reminded just how awesome. A colleague of mine, Danielle Braun, had what I thought was an incredible idea for her birthday. For Danielle's birthday, she's not asking for more new clothes, for her parents to get her a car, for help with paying off tuition, or for some new fancy tech gadgets. But she's not asking for nothing. Danielle is asking for your support with Charity: Water this year. Charity: Water is a non-profit organization with the goal of bringing clean water to people in developing nations that don't have access to it. Reading their mission page probably opens your eyes a fair bit about the lack of access to drinking water in other countries. They're not about some complex and elaborate plan…
Movember Wrap-up At the start of December, it's time for a lot of us to shave off our glorious Movember badges from our upper lips. This year, MoMagnets did an absolutely amazing job raising money for Movember. At the time of writing, we're sitting at just under $2400! An incredible effort by Magnet Forensics and all of those that helped with their generous contributions. My 'stache didn't quite get to where I wanted to this year. It was close, but it was another connector-less Movember for me. I was almost able to get some twisting done for some not-so-legitimate connectors. Oh well... Here's what I ended up rocking for most of the month: My final Movember creation: The Anti-Connector. Matt Chang definitely took the lead for raising the most of all the MoMagnets members at over $700! Mica Sadler is…
Deloitte Companies to Watch Another impressive accolade for Magnet Forensics! Deloitte has placed Magnet on their top 10 companies to watch list! To qualify for the list, the companies need to be operating for less than five years, be based out of Canada, and put a large portion of their revenue to generating intellectual property. Our CEO, Adam Belsher, had this to say about the award: “We are honoured to be named one of Deloitte’s Companies-to-Watch. This award recognizes the hard work and dedication of our team. We’re thankful for the success we’ve achieved, and we’re incredibly proud to be contributing to the important work done by our customers who use our solutions to fight crime, enhance public safety, protect companies from fraud and theft, and ensure workplace safety and respect for their employees.” Magnet Forensics Press & Events The event…
Matt "Chang-a-rang" Chang If you saw this post, then the face above is no new face to you. You're familiar with that beautiful 'stache already. Okay, so I'm being a little misleading... Matt Chang doesn't walk around with that glorious caterpillar on his face all year round. We're working on that though. You're likely wondering why I'm putting incredible pictures of Matt Chang on the web and why I'm even writing this. Previously I mentioned that I want to start recognizing the people I work with when I feel that they're going above and beyond. I did this with Cam Sapp not too long ago, and I plan to keep doing it for all of the great people I work with. There are a million ways to recognize someone, whether it be in team meetings, personally, or by doing what I'm…
Quality And Agility Last week, at Magnet Forensics we were fortunate enough to have a very talented quality expert come in and talk to us. Paul Carvalho was able to bring a great deal of information, perspective, and activities to our development team that truly proved to be an eye opener. We were all extremely excited to get to sit down and hear what Paul had to say. There's lots to read about Paul over at his STAQS site, but I'll re-iterate some of it here. Paul has held many roles when it comes to software development. He's been a developer, a manager, a tech support person, and part of quality assurance. He certainly has a full perspective on software development. Coming from a science background, he does a great job of explaining why things are a certain way or why…
Cameron Sapp and a Little Background A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to start publicly acknowledging some of my teammates. While this is the first one, it certainly won't be the last. At Magnet Forensics, I'm surrounded by many individuals that bring a lot to the table. There's certainly no reason and no way I'd only be able to pick one person to write about. Now there wasn't a particular reason I picked this individual first, but I think I had some concrete things fresh in my head that I wanted to share. Without too much more rambling, I'd like to introduce Cameron Sapp! New Kid on the Block Cameron joined our team earlier this year. I don't think any of us doubted his technical abilities and we were all excited to bring him on board.…
Movember Preparation You might think we're a bit early on this one, but at Magnet Forensics we're going to take Movember to a whole new level this year. If you're not familiar with Movember, you may want to head over here and get a rundown of the history of it. Movember started in Australia between a group of people who wanted to (somewhat jokingly) bring the moustache back into style. The next year they started getting people to grow mo's for causes. Now people participate in Movember to raise awareness for men's health, and it's bigger than ever. Our team members of MoMagnets have started discussing the various styles of mo's that they'll grow this year. It looks like there's going to be some intra-team competition to grow the best mo. The top contenders? It's looking like: Matthew Chang Cameron…
Last week I mentioned a colleague of mine, Tayfun Uzun, had a little surprise. He's put together a great write up on intrapreneurship and what it means to be an intrapreneur. The importance of Intrapreneurship Innovation is the life-blood of any organization; we have all heard it and one way or another understand it. Actually, let me rephrase that. Revenue is the life-blood of any organization, but innovation begets revenue. One big movement in large companies is the idea of intraprenuership, the act of behaving like an entrepreneur within an established organization. Intrapreneurship is baked into your culture--it starts from your first hires in a start-up and needs to persist as you grow. It is not something that you can take a two day course and learn, much like entrepreneurship. Why do you need intrapreneurship? Well, innovation is what sells.…
