Category: Employee Spotlight

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… Kashika Whitelaw, a key member of our Omaha-based enrollments team.

 

Name: Kashika Whitelaw

Title: Quality Assurance Analyst, Enrollments

Location: Omaha, Nebraska

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

One year and two months 

How would you describe Ideon’s culture?

The company as a whole has built a positive culture. Our work is challenging, but at the same time, it’s refreshing being part of such a progressive, flexible, inclusive, and collaborative company where everyone works together toward a common mission.

What do you like most about your job and working at Ideon?

Constantly learning and being inspired by the openness of creativity and innovation. 

What’s your day-to-day like on Ideon’s enrollment operations team?

I provide assistance to our tech partners ensuring member management data is processed as seamlessly and effectively as possible. I’m also currently involved in developing Ideon’s Enrollments Operations Quality Assurance (QA) department by creating processes, documentation, workflows and training new team members. 

How was the onboarding process joining Ideon amid a global pandemic? Was it challenging to get to know your teammates while working remotely?

Onboarding was user-friendly and straightforward for me—our People Team laid out exactly what needed to be done and they were very responsive when I had questions. My computer, applications, and credentials were perfectly set for my first day.

Life

Favorite activities when you’re not working?

Dance, exercise, home decor shopping, work on side projects, and binge-watch shows (Grey’s Anatomy is my favorite).

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Turks and Caicos 

Interesting fact about yourself…. Go!

My daughter and I make our own natural hair products and participate in double dutch tournaments locally.

 

Interested in joining our team? Check out Ideon’s careers page.

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… our long-time software engineer, Tom Aguilar.

 

Name: Tom Aguilar

Department: Engineering

Title: Software Engineer

Location: New York

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

Five and a half years. I was one of the earlier employees, No. 14 to be exact!

So you’ve had a front-row seat to Ideon’s transition from a small startup to the well-funded, nearly 100-person company it is today. What’s that experience been like for you?

It’s been a great learning experience over the years. When I started, everyone wore many hats, as is common early on. We were discovering what worked and didn’t. We’ve learned quite a bit from those early days, and we now have a more established process and team structures to fully support our mission.

You started your Ideon career on the data operations team. How was the transition to the engineering team?

When I first joined, I was part of the data operations team, figuring out how our health insurance benefit and rate data should be standardized and sourced into our system. At some point, it became clear that what we were doing was closely tied to our engineering team’s effort to build out our APIs and expose the data to customers. With support from the engineering team, I transitioned from a more data-science role to software engineering, which was a fun and engaging way to learn. And I have a unique perspective that I get to share. I can help new Ideon engineers get up to speed and more deeply understand how the rest of the company functions.

What attracted you to Ideon’s mission?

I went to a public health school so I was drawn to the mission of improving access and efficiency in the healthcare system. I enjoy getting the opportunity to work for a company looking to make the system work better for everybody. 

What do you enjoy about Ideon’s company culture?

We have a really strong and diverse team that I get to work with every day. I enjoy the good balance of independent work and collaboration on the engineering side. 

What do you like most about your job and working at Ideon?

I love that I get to take a deep dive into the insurance industry’s challenges, as my workday is full of solving technical problems that impact how millions of Americans access and enroll in benefits.

Tell us about your day-to-day as a member of the engineering team?

My day starts at “stand-up”—our daily morning meeting—going through the tasks I’m currently working on and any blockers that I have run into. Then from there, I’m focused on getting features out to our customers or on improving the internal tooling for our operations team.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working?

Drinking natural wines and playing records.

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Japan.

 

Interested in joining our team? Check out Ideon’s careers page.