As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Kate Goff.

Company Role: Data Manager

Most likely to: Be discussing cats

Secret talent: Knows everything there is to know about nail polish

Coming from a non-profit background, our Data Manager, Kate spent the best part of ten years fighting for epic women’s rights causes across the US, South East Asia, and Africa before coming over to the tech world. One particularly interesting program she worked on was the Goats for Girls program in east Africa, where young women were given a goat straight out of school. …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Dennis Bui.

Company Role: Junior Software Developer

Most likely to: Drop one-liners/jokes during a conversation

Secret talent: Appearing mild-mannered during the first impression

From chemist to coder — Dennis’s journey to String and Key is a unique one. After working as an analytic chemist for five years, he got the itch to change careers. But it wasn’t a yearning to switch to something completely random. It was more of a desire to get back to his original passion for software engineering — a passion originating from his love of playing video games growing up (and wanting to build a game of his own someday). …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Krizia Vance.

Company Role: Creative Department Producer

Most likely to: Get injured stumbling on their own feet

Secret talent: An expert in random celebrity facts + gossip

An aspiring artist in her younger years, Krizia came to the realization — early on — that some passions shouldn’t be made into careers. …

As a fintech startup, we rely on technology in everything that we do, so you could say our Web Engineering team is the foundation of our company’s goals and successes. From building our websites, along with our back-of-house software, and the internal tools that bring our products to life, they are responsible for architecting and writing software that delights. And, they work closely with our other equally-as-important Creative, Strategy, and Infrastructure teams to keep everything running securely and reliably.

Made up of a passionate and dynamic group of young professionals, the team is constantly chasing a perfect balance between self-sufficiency and support. They know that writing code is, in its own way, a creative endeavor, so their team process is set up to allow for focused time to get in the zone along with space for development and mentorship. Sometimes that means pairing with a peer or digging into code review feedback together. Other times, it means taking time to work through a course for a new language or framework, so the front-end and back-end teams better understand each other’s work. …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Soong Shin.

Company Role: Senior Designer

Most likely to: Check soccer news every day (mostly European leagues)

Secret talent: Great photographer, DJ, FIFA player, and flute player

After spending most of his life in Chuncheon, South Korea, our Senior Designer, Soong, moved to San Francisco for school. After a year or so studying on the west coast, he went back home but then decided the east coast—and NYC in particular—sounded like a good place to settle down (and who can blame him?).

From working on motion graphics, 3D animation, graphic design, and more, to showing his fine-art digital photography at both big and small exhibitions and publications in Seoul, New York, and New Jersey, Soong’s early career saw him eyeing both the design and photography fields. However, after quickly realizing the high cost of living in NYC, he temporarily hit the brakes on his artistic endeavors and went full throttle on pursuing a design career. It looks like it all worked out as he’s now a full-time member of our Creative team and, outside of that, has been working with some of our team members for over six years (so he’s basically family now). …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Jasmin.

Company Role: Senior Copywriter

Most likely to: Start learning something new and then get distracted by trying to learn something newer

Secret talent: An uncanny knack for identifying subtle ingredients in foods

Our resident Brit, Jasmin, has been living in the United States, off and on, for over eight years, and now has that awkward semi-British/semi-American transatlantic accent she promised her friends and family she’d never adopt. …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet Alex Shook.

Company Role: Senior Software Engineer

Most likely to: Be eating snacks at my desk

Secret talent: Handstands

Alex’s early career ideas weren’t necessarily ones she expected to take her into the tech field. Growing up, she dreamed of dancing for the New York City Ballet or becoming a competitive figure skater. …

As part of our ongoing employee spotlight series, we’ll be profiling colleagues who inspire us. Today, meet John Joseph.

Company Role: Senior Software Developer

Most likely to: Keep drinking coffee until the pot is empty

Secret talent: Excellent guitar skills

If you’re curious about the history of punk rock and hip hop, John’s your man. A musician himself, he admittedly knows way too much about the subjects. He has even considered writing a book on this music history but thinks that the market has already been saturated (we disagree and hope he’ll change his mind someday!). …