As a GMV software engineer, Cooper has programmed some of the most important projects at the company, including Detours, Sync mobile apps, and our rider-facing website. From fast code to fast cars, learn more about what excites this GMV’er
about the world of transit.

1. What do you love most about software engineering?
I decided I wanted to become a software engineer when I was eight years old because I loved video games and wanted to create them myself. As I got older, I realized software engineering was much bigger than that. It’s one of the few fields where you can build almost anything using only your creativity, knowledge, and determination.

Unlike many other industries, you don’t need expensive physical resources like wood, steel, or concrete to bring ideas to life. Your imagination is the limit. Even today, I still get excited when starting new projects, solving difficult bugs, or learning new technologies and frameworks. 

2. What GMV project that you’ve worked on are you most proud of?
Our team solved making detour creation faster and easier for dispatchers. Previously, creating a detour required duplicating and manually editing routes, or using external tools before importing changes back into the system. 

I worked closely with the product team to help design and build a map-based detour tool that lets users edit routes for detours inside our software. Dispatchers can now snap routes to roads, cancel or re-assign stop service, and make adjustments much more quickly. This turned what used to be a tedious manual process into a much faster workflow.

3. How have you grown in your professional journey at GMV?
When I started at GMV a little over two years ago, I was the 9th engineer hired and the first mid-level engineer (of all seniors) on the team. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to grow alongside the company and smart engineers as our department expanded and took on larger, more ambitious projects.

As I continued to grow professionally, I am now the Team Lead for the Web team, where I help guide technical direction and decisions.

4. What’s one of your favorite things about the GMV culture?
GMV is a very large company. We have people working in Europe and many other countries, and even though a lot of us are remote, we’re always on calls together, sending messages to each other, and working very collaboratively as a team. When we do get to meet together in person, it’s always exciting to see these digital faces come to life and hang out with smart people who are working on cool projects.

5. What’s a fun fact about you that you want others to know?
I really love watching Formula 1 racing! I enjoy how F1 teams solve complex engineering challenges creatively because it mirrors the same problem-solving mindset we use every day in software engineering. In my world, we also work within constraints (whether it’s existing infrastructure, performance limitations, or product requirements) and still strive to build fast, innovative, and impactful solutions.