A Staff Software Engineer Breaks Down What Balance Means for Her

Stacey Watro, a staff software engineer in the Platform Engineering Group at Squarespace, tells Fairygodboss the most rewarding part of her job is making engineers’ jobs easier.

“As a platform engineer, I’m building and vetting tooling so application engineers can build faster,” she explains. “One day, an engineer told me he actually reads the release notes I write and finds them helpful. I couldn’t stop smiling all day!”

Watro enjoys solving hard problems, using programming to provide tools that create innovative solutions. Here, we caught up with her to learn more about her day-to-day work and how she balances it all with her vivid home life, as well.

How do you prioritize and deal with your to-do list each day?

I find that managing up is the best way to set expectations and focus my time. Working with my manager to determine where and how my time should be spent really helps me clean up my priority list and make it easier to navigate.

How do you start your day? Is there anything special you do to prepare for the day?

I’m a big fan of standups and self-reflection. I start each day by reflecting on what progress has been made and what needs to happen next. I do this for my work and personal life. It’s often in the form of a to-do list or running notes document. I like the feeling of crossing things off my list or completing my thoughts. It makes me feel like I’m making progress.

Do you have any recent projects or moments at work that you are particularly proud of?

Recently, I was part of a group that released guidance for writing a new API. We build a lot of APIs, and attempting to be consistent is a challenge. We created guidelines to help engineers with this challenge.

To get started, we had to come up with a standard definition of what the design should be, format the content in a digestible manner, and get alignment across stakeholders. I'm particularly proud of the alignment we gathered -- it's not easy to get a group of engineers to agree on a definition of good, but we worked hard to get there.

Once the guidelines were in place, we went to work socializing and promoting them. It was so rewarding to see them actually being used in our team's workflow.  It gave me confidence that this release can hit the goals we set out to achieve and that engineering alignment is possible even when it seems difficult.

What are your favorite benefits or perks at Squarespace, and how do these help you succeed?

The best part of working at Squarespace is how accepting and accommodating they are when it comes to switching teams. In my almost six years at Squarespace, I’ve worked in three very different areas of Engineering. I started in Internal Products building full-stack applications for Squarespace employees. We owned applications like the Squarespace People Directory. Then I transitioned to leading the development of Squarespace Marketplace, a tool for Squarespace users to find Squarespace Experts to help with their business. Now, I work in Platform, focusing on helping backend engineers build applications. I’ve learned something new on each team and feel very grateful for my breadth of experiences. Each team has helped me evolve as an engineer while staying at Squarespace. 

What kinds of boundaries have you established to separate work and home life?

Luckily, Squarespace truly values work-life balance. I’ve always felt supported to go on vacation, turn my phone off when I'm not on-call, and take time for myself. At other companies, I have encouraged defining team norms that help establish boundaries, but there has never been a need at Squarespace.

What’s your go-to stress-relief activity or routine? 

Reading is the best stress reliever for me.  My go-tos are romantic comedies, historical fiction, and sci-fi. After a stressful day, I love escaping into another world. It helps me shelve what happened at work and pick it up again tomorrow. 

Do you have any activities or interests outside of your day-to-day role?

I’m an urban gardener! I grow tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, and more on my balcony in New York City. This is the first time I’ve had outdoor space to grow plants, and I wasn’t sure a balcony would be the best environment. I was nervous my strawberries would taste like the East River, but so far, everything has been edible!

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