Ruby Gaviola
Software Engineer
Ruby is a software engineer on the product team. She provides technical support for the newsroom, newsletter, and marketing teams.
“The levels of trust that the superiors give you allows you to work in a toxic-free environment. We work independently here without anybody micromanaging anyone.”
- What attracted you to work at your company? How did you know it would be a good fit?
- Being able to work for a big name newspaper is what first drew me in. Before this, I was building site templates for smaller newspapers. When I applied for a position with The Los Angeles Times, I was excited to focus on one entity and having the opportunity to work on other types of products. I knew working here meant working with a bigger team with a wide range of skills. The diversity in the people and the projects is what really locked me in.
- What are you responsible for in your current role?
- My main responsibilities right now is to provide technical support to the newsletter and email marketing team of the company. When an idea of a new newsletter gets approved, I am there to start any configuration set up and the development of the template. For the marketing emails, I get to work closely with the designers and build out their vision for their email.
- What are you working on right now that excites or inspires you?
- I am working on a data scraper that will save and log data from a feed at an interval. This is something requested by the newsroom. I love taking requests from them because it usually means they need it for an important story piece they are working on. This project also requires me to learn a few things that are outside of my knowledge and to make decisions that will best suit our infrastructure. The end goal is to build a dynamic widget that displays this data. I love to do front-end development because it is nice to see a display of your work on the site that is not only useful internally but also for the readers themselves.
- What do you value most about your company’s or team’s culture? What sets it apart from other places you’ve worked?
- What I value most about the company’s culture is the diversity. In our product team you have different personalities playing unique roles. Since the pandemic, most of us, if not all, work from home. That gave the company the flexibility to hire people not just from Southern California. We have colleagues outside of the region, bringing their experiences from their own culture to our environment. It really provides a complex approach when brainstorming. Another thing that I value is the team organization of roles. Everyone has a specific part that they contribute. It makes it easy for us to delegate work or know who to reach out to when requests come in.
- What’s one thing you would want a candidate to know about what it’s like to work at your company?
- Future candidates should know that if they are hired they are entering into a stress-free zone! The levels of trust that the superiors give you allows you to work in a toxic-free environment. We work independently here without anybody micromanaging anyone. At the same time, our superiors’ doors are wide open and happy to help with even the simplest questions.
- What are some ways your company or team supports and stays connected to people who are working remotely?
- Slack has been our bind that keeps us together. We utilize the channels to chat about random topics when we need a break or talk about our wins and successes. It’s a less formal way to communicate than writing an email, which gives us the chance to show our personality through the screen. Being able to talk freely and work through Slack makes real-life encounters comfortable as if we do see and work with each other every day in an office.
Meet Other The Los Angeles Times Employees
Raquel Dall’Igna
User Experience Designer
Raquel helps strengthen the connection people have with the LA Times. She makes it easier for readers to find and consume the stories we publish on their website.
Meghan Logue
Product Director, Engagement UX
Meghan oversees our core Web, Mobile and Newsletter Product Management team, which focuses on helping users find award-winning journalism and stories they love, come back for and pay for.
Diki Dolkar
UX Designer, Subscriber UX
Diki's role on the Subscriber UX team is to improve our user's journey from engaged user to paid subscriber and help build and innovate user experiences that make it easy for our valued subscribers to stay subscribers of L.A.Times online.
James Perez
Principal Software Engineer
James Perez had been with the L.A. Times since 2015. As a Principal Software Engineer he provides technical leadership and manages engineering resources to design, build, and maintain products to benefit the newsroom and our subscribers.
Amy Wong
Audience Engagement Editor, Arts & Entertainment
Amy’s role involves identifying, engaging with and retaining readers for arts and entertainment through social media, events and more.
Now hiring at The Los Angeles Times
Explore career and job opportunities at The Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles Times has no open jobs right now.