Fast. Secure. Scalable.
If you’re looking for three powerful adjectives that describe the edge that Fastly has on their competitors – there you have them. Moving beyond the typical content management delivery systems and expectations, Fastly is changing the game with a powerful edge cloud platform that ups the game on video streaming, content management, cloud security and load balancing – all with one big mission in mind – Fastly is built to scale on demand, a demand that their customers can’t resist.
We got the chance to pick the super-smart brain of Peter Banka, the Senior Software Engineer at Fastly where we got to hear more about the future of their product, how Zight (formerly CloudApp) helps the Fastly team navigate some of their toughest challenges and how we’re helping their entire team save time!
Tell us a little bit about your biggest challenges throughout the workday and how Zight (formerly CloudApp) helps you work around those?
Our biggest challenge right now is software development using remote teams and the challenges that come with having both remote teams and users. Zight (formerly CloudApp) allows us to show code to people easily through Slack or Github and makes it quicker to ask for design- reviews and discuss project options.
How much is your work focused on user experience and content?
About 75%. Our user interface is a HUGE part of what sets Fastly apart from everyone else. And we’re really aggressive with customer service. We want them to be happy, because we understand how painful it is to work with our competitors. Because of that our customers are major content producers like Twitter and the New York Times.
Our customers have two pain points that Fastly is dedicated to making easy for our customers.
- They need to be able to purge content quickly out of the network
- Manage large amounts of content quickly and easily
Everyone at Fastly works on the same interface, so we’re all working together daily to make it the best for our customers. It’s our pride and joy. We want our interface to be understandable, discoverable and manageable. Everyone can sign up for a free account here and see how you can give your cloud and content management an edge.
What does the future of product look like?
Annotating animated GIFs quickly and easily in real-time or nearly. Side-by-side comparison between actual screens and design specs.
What are the workflows at Fastly where you see teams using Zight (formerly CloudApp)?
We use Zight (formerly CloudApp) to review the designs created by engineering, comparing to UX specifications.
How much time would you say that saves you overall – pre Zight (formerly CloudApp) vs. now?
Hard to say. There are competing apps like LICEcap and Skitch, but the annotation features and the animated gifs in a single tool which are pasteable directly into Slack probably save me 15 minutes a day, which adds up.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Airplane pilot. But I had my first computer when I was ten – so I’ve always been programming. And then when I went to college, I thought I’d switch it up and studied theoretical physics. But as it turns out I had more fun writing code, with better career opportunities so I went back to coding.
Join the club of raving Fastly fans, and see what’s new for their edge cloud platform and how brands you love use Fastly everyday to scale without any sign of slowing down.
