Life At Nexxen with Jessie Brickner

For the latest installment of Life at Nexxen, we spoke with Jessie Brickner, Engineering Manager on the SSP side. We talked about lake fishing, nearly a decade of systems work, and more.

How long have you been with Nexxen? 

It’s been almost nine years. I started at a company called Blinkx, which became RhythmOne. RhythmOne was eventually acquired by Tremor International, and then last year we became Nexxen.

How much of your team is still here from your Blinkx days?

It is almost the identical team that has been working together since I started. There are obviously a lot more people now with more teams and products, but the SSP team has remained the same over the years.

For folks outside of the industry, can you describe what your team’s role and responsibility is for the SSP platform?

The exchange is the middleman between the DSPs and the SSPs and has been incorporated into what is now known as the SSP. It is an auction house between people that want to buy ads for their website, TV channel, etc. and people that want to sell those ads.

We maintain the hardware and servers in several datacenters around the world, making sure it is running as optimally as possible. We also spend a great deal of time building out capacity in new and existing regions to keep up with the demand from the business-side.

Are you responsible globally or do we have teams in other regions?

We take care of this globally.  

Wow, does that mean that your team is on call 24/7?

Yes. It’s me and one of my direct reports that are always on call. For many years we were both on call 24 / 7 / 365, but now we rotate every week.

That’s a lot of work for a small team, how do you manage?

It is not as dire as it sounds. Since we have been working on this platform for many years, we have reached a point where there are rarely issues.

You’ve been with Nexxen a really long time. How did you end up in systems engineering?

I have always been interested in writing code. I spent many years coding for free online games, mostly World of Darkness mushes, but I did not want to write code as a career. I was afraid that I would turn something that I was passionate about into something I did not enjoy at all.

Instead, I spent about half my life working manufacturing type jobs – everything from screen printing, paper converting, etc. After that, about 10 years ago, I went to Fox Valley Tech College in Appleton, Wisconsin and got a degree in software development. While going to school, I took a job with Blinkx, doing system engineering for the SSP, and that is what led me to where I am now.

What is your advice for successfully managing an acquisition process?

Make yourself valuable to the new team or company. Get to know your new co-workers and help them out with their projects wherever you can. Get involved in the integration, as opposed to just sticking to your original team. I always tried to jump in and help where I could.

In your free time, do you have any hobbies you like to do?

I live on a lake in northern Wisconsin, and I do a lot of musky and walleye fishing. Unfortunately, one of the things I’ve quickly learned is that when living on a lake in the woods, there is not a lot of free time. Everything takes time, even running to the hardware store can be an hour or two trip. Most of my free time is spent fixing the house, working in the yard, splitting firewood, and other tasks that come with living outside of a city.