Meet The team: Tabby Twist

Fun & Nerdy

September 12, 2022

Min Read

‍This week we would like you all to meet one of our brilliant Software/Firmware engineers: Tabby Twist

What is your favorite quote:

“We’re long on high principles and short on simple human understanding.” - Vernor Vinge

What do you do at Tilt Five?

I implement software features and bug fixes in the Tilt Five glasses embedded firmware. Working to improve drivers to mitigate the impact of semiconductor shortables by enabling compatibility with a broader range of parts. I am looking forward to working on other elements in the T5 stack in the future!

What are your credentials/past experience?

Previously I worked as an applications engineer at several semiconductors companies. I also worked on wearable and AR projects at Apple and Microsoft. And I have several wearable tech patents!

Did you go to school? Self-taught? Is this your first role with a tech hardware company?

I took everything apart when I was a kid to learn how it worked, even dumpster diving to find tech to disassemble! At the age of six I wandered to a nearby HAM radio swap by myself and at ten, I got my first paid programming job! I never missed a chance to have a summer job or internship. I have always worked in tech, both as an EE or semiconductor apps engineer or in firmware/software.

What do you like about working at Tilt Five?

Tilt Five has a very open culture supporting individual differences and I enjoy being able to be myself there. I’m really excited to work at a company that is laser-focused on giving the best customer experience they possibly can.

What’s your background?

I grew up in Southern California. I am a child of a white man and a Black woman who struggled to be accepted as a married couple. My father is a chemist who worked in the aerospace industry on battery technology, and my mother was a trained classical musician but worked in mainframe computer software.

My mother pushed me as a kid resulting in some unusual things--like taking college classes at a very young age! While I am unsure how I feel about that, I sure am lucky that my parents supported my interest in learning about tech. I also used to go to my Dad's company laboratories and see things that had been sent to space; not many people get those kinds of opportunities.

I am transgender!

What are the values that drive you?

Quality is really important to me! Quality sounds like a simple concept, but it is not, it is very multidimensional. Quality in software means getting the most features out of the available resources but also thinking ahead to write software that is less likely to have problems, or can be debugged if it fails in the field, or can be easily extended to support expected future functionality.

I think most things in life are multidimensional and have tradeoffs. I believe there are hardly any things that are purely black and white. Everything can be better in so many ways. If I have to flip a coin between status quo and making a change, I’d rather shake things up. We’ve seen the status quo already, so let’s see if we can check out the alternatives!