Meet Jesse: A Software Engineer Building the Cloud

Jesse Lynch is as resourceful as he is amiable—a technical subject matter expert with a master’s degree in computer science, and a friendly conversationalist. 

He’s equally willing to share his technical expertise as he is a “dad joke” in our team’s popular mom and dad joke-dedicated Slack channel, or a photo of his adventure (ADV) motorcycle in our “MKE MC” private motorcycle enthusiast channel. Lynch gets along with just about everyone, well-liked in the department, and he’s also a charitable individual that we all could take a note from, spending his weekends volunteering in homeless outreach.  

Growing up, Lynch thought he wanted to be a mechanical engineer, then a video game developer. Today, his work is even larger in scale. A senior cloud engineer at Milwaukee Tool, Lynch works to build the cloud technologies that underpin our ONE-KEY™ app.  “I’ve always been more of a technical guy,” he tells me. As cloud engineer, Lynch works alongside software development operations (aka: DevOps) and infrastructure teams to “keep the lights on,” ensuring “the code that developers write [gets…] up into the cloud.” 

What Is a Cloud Engineer?  

A cloud engineer is a branch of software engineering that focuses on cloud computing, facilitating on-demand availability of computer system resources, like the seamless integration of our One-Key app and inventory storage across mobile and web apps—accessible wherever you are in real time.  

Jesse’s role helps facilitate your ability to use the app as a platform across devices and helping guide the technical requirements that allow this experience to naturally scale as we add more technologically robust features, as more users join our network and put more strain on it, as data housed in the app becomes increasingly bigger. Focused on the technical infrastructure of the cloud, Lynch also works adjacent to our cybersecurity teams looking to secure inventory across our organizational ecosystem.  

You know, people often say, the cloud is just someone else's computer. And you know, I guess that is an accurate thing to say it is. It's Amazon's computer. It's Microsoft's computer. But at the end of the day, it's just keeping in mind that the important part of software development is always kind of keeping a security-focused mind.

Jesse Lynch·Senior Cloud Engineer, Milwaukee Tool

Continue reading to learn more about Jesse, his day-to-day work life, and the typical responsibilities of a cloud engineer helping build productivity solutions for tradespeople. 

A Conversation with Jesse Lynch, Senior Cloud Engineer at Milwaukee Tool  

LM 

Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you first became a software engineer? 

JL 

So, it was something where growing up I was tinkering with things. I always like messing with things, and so I always knew that I wanted to be in some kind of engineering field. That transitioned to a couple times in middle school, [where] I thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer by the time I got into high school. [Then,] I thought that I would want to be a video game developer. 

So, that's kind of where my future career path [began]. I was planning for college, so I ended up going to school at UW-Whitewater, initially for their media arts and game development program with the technology emphasis. I've always been much more of a technical guy. And then, while I was there, I kind of transitioned into just generally being more interested in computer science. 

So, that's when I kind of transitioned into being a computer science major instead, and even though I ended up changing my major, it really didn't change the courses that I ended up taking at all.

And then, while I was there, they were launching their master’s program in computer science. I kind of went for it, and I was a little bit ahead of schedule with undergrad. I was able to tackle some of the grad school courses as an undergrad, so went ahead and did my master's for computer science right away. 

LM 

Wow, that’s such an interesting and impressive backstory. Related to game development, is that still an interest you pursue on the side?  

JL 

No, not really. 

It’s one of those things where […] I enjoyed the technical aspect of engineering, but as far as a hobby goes, it was kind of something that I always kind of mentally created that line of work versus a hobby, so it never really became anything that I ended up really doing on the side. 

LM 

I feel like that's probably for the best [to separate your hobbies from your work]. 

OK, so how did you find your way to have Milwaukee Tool? 

JL 

So, it was about a year and a half ago, just going through some life stuff. 

And I was still at the place I got hired at originally right out of school. So, I had been there about 3 1/2 years, almost four years, and I just kind of decided that it was time for a change.  

I started on the job hunt and I remembered that, you know, in the past I had looked at Milwaukee Tool’s website kind of interested in what they were doing as far as software goes.  

And then, when I was looking, there was this role for One-Key that was pretty much exactly up my alley. It was everything that I was doing day-to-day at my old job. So, it was perfect. So, I immediately applied, had a couple of phone interviews by the end of the week. The hiring process went super-fast, and you know, within the month I was moving on to new job here at Milwaukee Tool. 

So, a kind of big life decision ended up [happening where] it was kind of time for me to shift where I was working. I was getting kind of burned out at my old job and found my way over.   

LM 

That’s great. Not that you were burned out, but that you were able to make a positive change and find a position here at Milwaukee Tool that was a perfect match for your skillset and experience. 

Can you describe what your role and responsibilities are at a high level and what a day in your life looks like? 

 
JL 

Sure.  

So, my role now is senior cloud engineer. 

So, what that entails is a little bit more of a day-to-day kind of the keeping the lights on deal of the infrastructure of our account. It's working with our DevOps and infrastructure side of things as far as how do we actually get from the code that developers write to getting it up into the cloud? 

So that's kind of what my focus has shifted into. A lot of that right now is dealing with our code build process. So [when developers are] done with their development, it's making sure that we've got the infrastructure in place that they can just kind of press a button and go from that code to getting built, to getting ready to go up into the cloud, to making sure that it's up in the cloud, that everything is running smoothly. 

So yeah, more recently my days have kind of been shifting into getting some of the older things that have kind of fallen out of shape a little bit as far as our code goes and getting them up to snuff with running around our new infrastructure that we're planning out, making sure that I'm helping out developers with any issues that they run into as far as that goes, and it's kind of helping out the planning process as we shift into looking at a new cloud infrastructure and how our build process kind of fits into that.  

LM 

That’s great. So, how does working with software that underpins a tangible power tool differ from previous experiences you may have had working as a software engineer? 

JL 

So, it kind of ended up being that the place I was working at before was actually a similar kind of setup of working with cloud infrastructure that ended up integrating with some products down the line. But where it differed pretty big was that, before, I was working on getting software up and running with some really old legacy hardware—you know, this was long before Bluetooth was around, long before Wi-Fi was around. So, getting, you know, to a point of figuring out how we get this hardware from the 80s to operate and run and communicate with the cloud.  

So, it's really different from what I'm working with now in that there's not so much of a headache, you know, a design challenge, and kind of that weird backwards compatibility as much as there is being able to kind of focus on really on the technology side of things. 

And so, I think that's what I really enjoy about One-Key is that it's, you know, something that One-Key tool [was] built up from the ground basically with a really strong vision for the future.

And it's really, really future-oriented, which I really appreciate. 

LM 

So, what would you say collaboration looks like between yourself and some of the other functional areas within app development—you know, UX design, QA, product security, etc. 

JL 

So, one of the big things with heading up some of the infrastructure is that, eventually, down the line, every one of the developers, of our QA members, eventually need to be touching this build server that I was kind of talking about before [as part of] this build process. 

So, it's kind of making sure [for] everyone that their day-to-day, you know, operations, their day-to-day processes [aren’t] being blocked by something that they have set up to be automated [and] all of a sudden isn't working. Or things we do, you know—a push to test at noon everyday type thing, [it’s] making sure that that's running so that the test team can continue running smoothly and it's working with developers when they're developing new things. 

So, that's usually what a lot of it comes down to is kind of making sure that the day-to-day operations continue as they are and then also when we're looking at new and better ways to do things, helping out developers learn those things, kind of cross-training them on the process of what building their code actually looks like. 

LM 

That's great—having a prebaked structure that can help empower the team.   

So, the world of software development or engineering is ever evolving. So, how do you stay up to date with current trends to ensure that you're growing with the industry? 

JL 

So, it's kind of like a day-to-day, you know—our infrastructure is all set up in AWS, Amazon Web Services. So, they're pretty good about posting blogposts, news articles about things that they're doing improvements [to], new features that they're rolling out. It's kind of keeping up to date on what's being rolled out. 

LM 

Similar to what we’re doing with the connectivity blog, keeping users up to date and offering best practices! 

JL 

It's looking at, you know, just kind of in general keeping up to date on security training, making sure that, you know, when new features do get rolled out in the US, it's kind of looking at, you know, what is the point of this feature? What are the benefits of it? 

And you know, why did Amazon decide to implement something like this? So, what are the benefits to it? And also, just kind of in general best practices evolved over time. The best way to do things ten years ago is pretty different from the best way to do things now. 

People kind of learn, you know, from the mistakes of many people of the past, creating a big learning experience for everybody. So, it's kind of, you know, when hearing about vulnerabilities or hearing that someone was a victim of a cyber-attack, it's, “OK well, what were the mistakes that they made and how can we be keeping vigilant so that [we're following] our best practices, [... and] don't fall victim to the same things." 

So yeah, it's really just a kind of keeping your head on a swivel and keeping up to date with, you know, what's going on in the industry.  

And over time, that just evolves into a learning about best practices. 

LM 

That’s great. The cloud being ubiquitous now, would you recommend an aspiring software engineer coming straight out of college to prioritize opportunities in cloud computing over, say, opportunities available at a legacy software company? Would you tell them to avoid those opportunities like the plague or not?  

JL 

No, I guess what it really comes down to is thinking of the cloud, as you know, at the end of the day, it's just a little bit different way of thinking about things. You know, software is software. 

You know, people often say, the cloud is just someone else's computer. And you know, I guess that is an accurate thing to say it is. It's Amazon's computer. It's Microsoft's computer. But at the end of the day, it's just keeping in mind that the important part of software development is always kind of keeping a security-focused mind.

And that's the same for the cloud as it is for if you're hosting your code on your own server in a closet somewhere. 

So, it's definitely not like you should look for a job in one environment or another. It's more so, you know, what is it that you're looking for? Are you looking for that experience where know you want be part of a team that manages their own infrastructure? Or do you want to be part of a team that is up and running with something that potentially like Amazon provides?  

You know, it's definitely a very opinionated thing. I don't necessarily think there's a right or wrong, but that's kind of my view of it at least. 

LM 

That’s a great answer. It’s always a good thing, keeping an open mind and not boxing yourself into a preset constraint unnecessarily.  

So, you've been working at Milwaukee tool for about two years now, right? 

JL 

Yeah.  

LM 

That’s what I thought. Can you tell me about any projects that you've been working on or initiatives that you've been working on that you were particularly proud of? And in addition to that, any milestones that the company has passed that you've been proud to be a part of? 

JL 

Yeah. So, I guess what I'm working on right now is probably the project that I've been most excited to work on. So, right now we're transitioning from basically our build server. So, you know, the piece of infrastructure that takes our code builds, that deploys it to the cloud. We're transitioning from doing that all on premises on one of our own servers to migrating that all into AWS.  

So, that's the initiative that I'm part of right now that I'm heavily kind of leading up right now and it's really exciting for me. I'm one of those people that generally, you know, ends up operating and managing build servers. Usually not the type of thing that’s flashy or attractive in software development, but it's been one of the things that I've always been really drawn to and I always end up working on.

And so it's, you know, getting that operational, transitioning all of those build processes from the old legacy on premises server. 

LM 

What would you say that some of the biggest recurring challenges you face as a software engineer are? And how do you combat them? 

JL 

So, I think that one of the kind of continuous challenges is making sure that you’re keeping everybody on the same page as far as communication goes. 

I think when you get to the scale that we're at, it's difficult to keep all the developers on the same page with the projects that are going on when you're juggling so many people, different priorities. It gets tricky, so it's really enforcing communication. Really promoting communication. Learning what that means. 

That’s kind of maybe one of the things that people don't think about as being a developer, you know, building those communication skills.  

But I think that it is incredibly important, whether it's, you know, cross-training other developers, whether it's yourself, [you need] to ask questions [and communicate openly] versus just struggling in silence.  

Those communication skills are definitely one of the things that I feel like isn't covered or isn't talked about. 

The most of the struggles that we face often end up, you know, being the result of a communication issue of a breakdown in communication. 

LM 

That’s great, and I feel like it’s kind of a universal problem to solve.   

Speaking of communication, but shifting from internal to external—if there was one thing that you could tell an end user, what would that be? 

JL 

I guess when it comes to, you know, their day-to-day experiences with the app, one of the trickiest things is always figuring out what a user really wants. 

And so, it's more so talking to an end user, could almost be like, "What if you could describe the process that you would like to do, rather than [wanting] this thing to be part of the app?"  

Not so much, "The app should do this, but here's this day-to-day piece of workflow that I feel there could be an improvement [to make my life easier]," and kind of describing things in that way and thinking about things that way. 

So, I think that's probably the most helpful way that, you know, talking with an end user [where] they can kind of frame their mind around how they use One-Key and then ask feedback for us of what does One-Key need to be. Not so much as like, “I want AB&C,” but “This is my day-to-day workflow, and I feel like some of these changes could really help improve my day-to-day workflow.” 

LM 

Yeah, that’s a great way to think about it, because if the focus is purely on the features, you run the risk of asking for something that you don't necessarily need. 

 
JL 

Yeah. 
 

LM 

So, I guess this is a nice segue. 

Say you were to encounter an end user who just doesn’t understand the app or doesn’t understand why it’s built in a way that’s contrary to their expectations. How do you make the case for One-Key and its untapped benefits as an IoT solution?  

And before you answer that, let me rephrase and give some context to how this question came about. 

We got a negative review recently, the gist of which was, “Why does this have to be a smartphone app? Why didn’t you build this feature into the tool?” 

And for me, it made me immediately think of Steve Jobs at the first iPhone launch in 2007. All the phones back then had tactile buttons. The iPhone disrupted this norm, and Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft at the time, made fun of the decision, calling the iPhone expensive and impractical. He said that it didn’t have a keyboard, so it wasn’t practical for business users who needed a keyboard for sending emails. In his keynote, though, Steve Jobs explained this was exactly the point—the tactile buttons limited the potential of the device, making the screen small and the keyboard permanently fixed. Software, he explained, allowed for agile updates to the UI and continuous improvement to the user experience. 

So, my question is, how would you explain to an end user the value of One-Key such that the software interacts with the power tools and can be progressively improved?  

JL 

So, I guess a lot of it comes down to [a number of things]. One, it's as far as cost of the tools.  

You know, adding a Bluetooth module to a tool is exponentially cheaper than adding a GPS unit to each of the tools.

GPS takes a ton of power and I think that's one of the things that is kind of an unseen cost of [where it would be] really nice if my tool tracking was all done by the tool itself. 

But I mean, you probably don't have a battery that could run long enough to actually do that. You’d be paying three times more for the tool. You know, that's kind of [...] because it doesn't exist yet. 

[As to the functionality and why it’s built the way it’s built, what] people might not necessarily understand, [it's that] we keep as much of the functionality in the One-Key app itself and we keep the tool as a tool basically like [to] the point of our drill is to be a drill. 

One-Key itself is kind of the benefit that a user gets with buying a One-Key enabled tool. [They] get to add things so much faster—we get to add so many more features by doing it in an app versus trying to do everything on the tool itself. 

LM 

Right. 

JL 
We kind of keep everything in focus of, “Why do you actually need tracking?” 

“Why do you need certain features?” 

“Why do you need these things?”  

And then, “What is both the most cost-effective way for them, and also, you know, the most sensical way for us to go about adding that?" And to me, that's how One-Key has gone about things. 

LM 

That makes sense. Thanks for that response. I think it'll be illuminative for some users, to hear about our software development approach—and the "why" behind it—from an actual software developer.  

Milwaukee Tool puts strong emphasis on putting end users at the center of our product development process, from research to development. 

Can you speak to me about how features are developed to prioritize user needs as well as challenges that present from being a solutions provider for a wide range of app users? 

 
JL 

Yeah. So, one of the tricky things as a developer is that a lot of the bigger decisions of the features that get added to One-Key, we don't necessarily get to make those decisions.  

But a lot of it comes down to, you know, as developers, we're kind of the ones that have an idea of how long it's going to actually take to implement something. 

We have an idea of the effort that it's going to take to implement something and so being able to get to vocalize that and explain that well is really where the OS developers come in if we're presented with, you know, our product management team has these 10 features that they would love to see implemented. 

And at One-Key, we're able to explain to them how difficult it's going to be and how long it's going take for each of those things, you know. But ultimately, at the end of the end of the day, we're not the one making that decision, but we're the one giving, you know, the organization clarity as to, “OK, these are the kind of challenges that we're going to be up against if these are the things that we want to do and whether it's worth it or not.” You know, we want to give visibility as well as we can into, I guess, the value that we can give by doing one thing versus another. 

LM 

What would you say that your favorite part about working at Milwaukee Tool is and also about working on the One-Key team? 

JL 

So, I would have to say by far it's the culture of the team. Looking at the culture of Milwaukee Tool, you know, there’s a big presence in the community and dedication to the community from Milwaukee Tool itself, which is awesome and working in this brand new office in downtown Milwaukee, you know, we call it Red Beacon, and it does kind of feel like a beacon here in the middle of the city. 

I think it's just kind of a hometown feel that a lot of people can rally around. But then for the One-Key team itself, the culture is just phenomenal in that everyone is genuinely interested in other people's lives, which is awesome.  

That's something I feel like is often hard to find in the corporate environment. People are lighthearted and they love having conversations with others about more than just, you know, day-to-day work. They’re just generally invested in each other, and I think that helps out the team a ton and [makes it] easier to work better as a team.  

And that kind of goes back to that communication thing that I brought up before. It feels like people are going be a lot better at communicating with each other when they kind of understand each other, more than a face on the other side of the screen. So yeah, I really loved the One-Key team and how they're able to do that. 

LM 

Absolutely. OK, I have a few rapid fire questions for the end. 

So any hobbies? I know that you like to ride motorcycles, but anything else, any specific hobbies? 

 
JL 

So yeah, riding my motorcycle, it's something that I try to do at least once a month throughout the whole year, which gets a little bit tricky in the winter months, but that's kind of a personal goal of mine is to get out at least once a month, even if it's only, you know, one day in the dead middle of winter. I tried to get out there. 

LM 
That's incredible. I was going to follow up. But yeah, go.  

JL 

So, since I started riding, you know, just a little bit over a year ago, my first year of owning a bike, that was the goal I set out for myself. 

And now my second year, it's when I continued that goal. So, we'll see how long I go. 

 
LM 

Oh, man, I got to do that as well. Oh, man. Cool. 

 
JL 
Yeah, but other than that. Rock climbing is something that I've gotten into lately. Just some indoor rock climbing. There's a couple of great gyms here in Milwaukee, so that's been fun. 

And then volunteering is probably by far the thing I spend the most time in my free time doing. 

I usually volunteered 10 to 15 hours a week. 

 
LM 

Nice. 

 
JL 

Mostly between homelessness outreach here in Milwaukee, and then also volunteering at a food pantry on the weekends. 

So, that's by far what I spend most of my free time doing, and it's something that I really, really enjoy. 

 
LM 

Do you have a favorite movie and or book? 

 
JL 

You know, I've never been much of a movie person, but I feel like The Dark Knight Rises is always what I kind of go back to as far as a  movie, it's just, you know, a really good movie. I like the characters. 

LM 

Right on.  

JL 

I feel like they're really well done and one of the few movies that I feel like, "Oh, yeah, I could rewatch that no problem." 

LM 

Absolutely.    

Do you have any music preferences? 

JL 

Yeah, I generally listen to either like rock or EDM for the most part. As far as music goes, generally I don't have too limited of a scope in what I like to listen to.  

But those are kind of the two genres that I tend to gravitate toward. 

LM 

Sweet. OK. 

Last one is related to motorcycles, so obviously I know riding motorcycles is a shared passion of ours.   

Are there any trips that you've made far so far that have been standouts? And are you looking forward to any big ones next season? 

JL 

Yeah. So, just a couple of weeks ago, I took my first big motorcycle camping trip.  

I went up to Door County up to Peninsula State Park and so it was mostly just to prove to myself that I could take my little 20 horsepower adventure bike and ride all the way up to the Door County and pack all of my gear onto it and survive the week with just what I could bring on my bike and make it all the way back. 

And I was able to do it so it was tons of fun. The weather was absolutely beautiful and a really glad I took the trip when I did.