Meet Sima Shimansky

Title: RIA Developer

Joined Arc90 in: July 2006

My most prized possession: Lila. If babies could be considered possessions . . .

Like others in her generation, Sima Shimansky grew up imagining a range of career possibilities. The Brooklyn, NY, native thought about pursuing jobs in industrial psychology, chemistry and law. Before she ventured into a career in technology, there was even a time when Arc90′s RIA Developer considered joining the FBI.

“I went to the FBI offices downtown,” she recalled. “I was on a mission but I didn’t qualify to be an agent. I wasn’t old enough and I needed an advanced degree.”

A year later, as she was completing course work at Brooklyn College for her Bachelor’s in Psychology, Sima realized that she didn’t want to be a therapist or pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology. Instead, her lifelong interest in art helped to open her eyes about following a rigid career plan. For her senior thesis, Sima researched the portrayal of women in art, focusing on Tom Wesselmann‘s Great American Nudes. Wesselmann was also a psychology major during his undergraduate years and eventually became a popular artist.

“He made me realize that you don’t need to be tied to your major,” the Park Slope, Brooklyn resident noted. “You can change your mind and your path.”

Sima started to explore graphic arts, first taking art courses and then moving onto more complex multimedia work.

“What drew me specifically to computer art was the ‘undo’ function,” she said. “I loved the fact that you could always go back and do things better.”

Inspired by the techniques she was learning, Sima decided to continue her education at the School of Visual Arts, where she received her Masters in Computer Art and Multimedia. For her first job after graduate school, she designed web layouts for a technology company; she didn’t totally connect with her work.

“The work I was doing was repetitive and boring, like formatting a hundred pictures of purses for a Website,” she said. “I didn’t feel qualified to do the more advanced graphic stuff because I didn’t consider myself a designer.  I had trouble with creativity on demand, which is why I moved on to coding.”

Sima jumped at the opportunity to learn a new language and branch out from HTML when she was working for the technology department of a nonprofit organization.

“They needed a ColdFusion developer,” she recalled. “It was a more advanced language but it was tag-based so it wasn’t such a far out idea. I ended up really liking it and enjoyed working with SQL and databases.”

Armed with these new skills, she interviewed with Arc90 in June 2006. She was drawn to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

“I liked that it felt familial,” she said. “People watched out for each other and hung out together outside of work. It was very inviting.”

On a professional level, Arc90 was a match as well.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to learn here,” Sima said. “There’s always a challenge and I never feel stuck. They’ll give you the tools or a chance to explore.”

Sima’s work in Flex is an example of her technical exploration as a client-side developer.

“It was a big step for me because the language was so different,” she commented. “It’s a completely different way of coding. It was scary but exciting. It was the next natural step for me.”

As an RIA developer, Sima spends her days developing the front-end of the company’s web applications, while continually adding tricks to her ActionScript trade. She compared her job to her favorite hobby.

“It’s like cooking-start with a designer’s comps, add one (large) part service API, one part architectural decisions, some ActionScript goodness and finesse and voila-you have a web application,” she said.

One of Sima’s most unforgettable memories about her time at Arc90 dates back to the Monday morning of March 3, 2008, when she was  nine-months pregnant and expecting her first child.   Although she came to the office prepared for a full day’s work, she went into labor as most of the company was either working or taking a lunch break.

“I was in the middle of instant messaging about a project,” she recalled. “I was asked to do something and I responded with, ‘I’m going to the hospital. I’ll be in touch.’”

On her way to the elevator, Avi Flax, one of the partners at Arc90, asked her about her lunch plans.

“I said, ‘I think I’m having a baby for lunch,” Sima recalled.

Since coming back to Arc90 as a working mom, Sima has had to learn to balance her responsibilities on both ends. Though she adores spending time with her daughter, the pull of work and technology is strong. If Sima ever decides to leave the world of technology, however, she already has another career plan in mind.

“I would be a construction worker,” she said. “I like to be outdoors and I like to work with my hands. Instead of building web applications, I could build houses.”