Meet Erik, one of TimeForge’s co-founders. Erik has been with TimeForge since the very beginning, for over 14 years! He does everything from keeping an eye on our data center, to making software improvements, to managing software maintenance and deployments to ensure TimeForge runs as smoothly as possible and with minimal interruptions in service. Erik is also our resident expert on E-Verify.
Keep reading to learn a bit more about Erik and what he does here at TimeForge!
Employee Spotlight
What’s your name?
Erik van Gilder. Thirteen letters for good luck.
What do you do at TimeForge?
I have the privilege to work with a group of talented developers to build new features and improvements for TimeForge. As with the rest of the team, I wear many hats, but I mostly spend time working on the big picture.
How long have you been working with TimeForge?
I have been working with TimeForge since the very beginning over 14 years ago. It’s been quite the journey from building a simple web-based scheduler to a platform with human resources, payroll and POS integrations, compliance and more. I look forward to the next 14 years!
What’s your favorite part of working at TimeForge?
The constant learning and change which means that novelty is always part of my TimeForge life. I enjoy the challenge of developing and implementing a technical solution to solve a customer’s problem. For example, the unexpected problem of helping two customers with their outbound marketing is a lot of fun.
How do you make the lives of TimeForge customers better?
By listening to our customers’ requests and problems. It’s true! Our customers know the problems we need to solve for them. The fun part is implementing the technical solution with the development team. We have a good time geeking out on a design that adds a useful feature, speeds up the application or makes the application easier to use. The tough part is that our customers often have so many good problems to solve that it’s sometimes difficult to pick one problem over the other.
What was your first hourly job?
My first hourly job in high school was as a printer operator in a traditional computer datacenter for a payroll processor. I have less than fond memories of the high-speed printers which suffered from a nasty habit of shredding the paper checks if the tension wasn’t perfectly set.
What was your first restaurant or retail job?
My first restaurant job was a short stint at McDonalds. One lesson I learned at McDonalds was the importance of paying attention to detail. I remember how one employee’s care and precision at the fryer would result in significant food cost savings. My second restaurant job was at Pizza Hut where I worked as a cook and a server with a great team that made work fun. There I participated in a pilot rollout of a POS which taught me some important lessons on software useability.
What’s your favorite hobby?
I’m a history buff and devour history books when time permits. I could see teaching history after I retire sometime in the far future.
What’s your favorite sports team?
I must answer this question in the past tense. I’m originally from the Washington, DC area and my favorite team was the Washington football team. I haven’t been able to transfer my allegiance to another team despite everyone’s well-intentioned suggestions.
More Employee Spotlights from 2021
If you enjoyed reading about Erik, check out some of the other Employee Spotlights published this year:
Your feedback helps us build a better product.
Like Erik says, we’re all about our customers! We love using customer feedback to improve our products and services. Whether you have a comment, question, or an idea to share, our support team would love to hear from you. We’re always looking for ways to improve TimeForge and to better serve you. Let us know what’s on your mind! You can also check out our Contact page for more ways to reach us.
