What makes DAS42 tick? Our people.

Our experts, analysts, and operations folks are talented, smart, and dedicated. They’re the best in the business and the most important asset we’ve got. We got here by creating a friendly environment where people work together to solve tricky problems and build creative solutions that transform our clients’ relationship with data.

But what does that mean at a practical level? What’s a typical day like at DAS42?

An Associate Analyst working out of our Denver office, agreed to give us a window into his world and write about a random workday in December 2021 (thanks, Jaden!). Just an average day, but the collegiality, curiosity, and dedication to client impact that are central to DAS42 culture come shining through.

I wake up to the rumbles of the light rail passing my apartment at around 7:00 AM. I fix a quick breakfast, pack my bags, and head out the door. It’s December; sunny and unseasonably warm for Denver – which although is somewhat concerning, makes for a lovely 15-minute commute. The drive is easy, some six miles up I-25 from Wash Park to River North. Traffic is good and my music is sound – before I know it I’m at the office. 

Just before 8:00 AM, I fob myself into the alleyway entrance of the Catalyst building. I’m greeted by the nutty aromas of the ground floor coffee shop and make my way to the locker room. The gym, which is never that busy, is empty this morning – probably due to the local mask mandate. I put in my earphones and warm up – this morning’s selection is house music with a side of core, cardio, and flexibility training. An hour goes by. I hit the shower, throw on some jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweater. It’s time to head upstairs.

Our suite is on the back corner of the third floor, facing Brighton Boulevard. I set up my desk, make a pot of pour-over coffee, and enjoy a moment looking over the street. By now, it’s 9:30 AM – time to get to work. Today I’m building a custom Looker visualization for a major video streaming platform. The goal of this viz is to color code content offerings by type and tenure in order to help executives better understand how their catalog is performing in the market on a day-by-day basis. The work is to be done in Liquid HTML – I’m a little unfamiliar with that language, so I tap the shoulder of my manager Logan to see if he has some time for a quick code-dev. Fortunately, he does, and has me on my way to solving the problem in no time. I work a little more on implementing the solution and head to my client stand-up at 10:45 AM. I report that I’m making good progress on the custom table visualization and should finish it up in the next two days. I work on this task till around 12:30 PM and head up to the community kitchen on the fourth floor. 

After grabbing a draft kombucha, I see my friend and colleague Brandon who works down the hall. He invites me to have lunch with him and we grab seats at the bar overlooking the downtown skyline. We chat about films, lindy-hop, fitness, and work over salads. He tells me that he’s looking for new clients to recruit for and I tell him that we are looking for new talent. We come to agree that it would be mutually beneficial if I introduced him to our hiring team. We smile, shake hands, and plan to go bowling sometime later. I make my way back to my desk sometime after 1:00 PM and draft a quick email to Amy, our talent acquisition manager. I then have an afternoon code-dev with my DAS42 buddy and client teammate Valeria at 2:00 PM. We double check some logic and tweak some formatting for the Liquid HTML work I’m doing – the implementation is about ready for deployment. At 3:00 PM, we end the code-dev and Slack the results to the client stakeholder. They are very happy with it and ask for some additional features now knowing this is something we can do. I agree to this and extend the timeline for deployment another day. 

It is about 4:00 PM. Having made strong process on the custom Looker visualization, I pivot to learning some Airflow. I spend an hour working on our internal training project, which was co-authored by my manager. I’m stumped, so I again tap Logan’s shoulder just before he packs to go home. He takes a look at my code, smiles, and says, “You’re close – have you considered using a nested for loop?” I think about this for a minute and have my “ah ha!” moment. I rush to finish the implementation and run it. It works! I have successfully completed the Airflow project! As I finish, Logan returns with a glass of whiskey and we celebrate my completion of the project. “I bet you could have figured that out on your own,” he says. I smile and thank him for his help. 

It is about 6:00 PM. I pack my bags and head down to the lobby with Logan. We chat about photography and music and say goodbye. I head down the block to the Mercury Cafe where I meet up with my lindy-hop partner. I eat a quick dinner and dance my way into the night. I’m home by 10:30 PM – it’s been a busy day. I hug my cat, brush my teeth and head to bed, more than ready to do it all over again tomorrow.