VineSpring Team Spotlight | Matthew Fay

We'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the VineSpring team, Matthew Fay! As a Senior Developer, Matthew comes to us with a great depth of knowledge in full-stack engineering. We sat down with him to see what he's most excited about, his view on the future of DTC, and what beverage he plans on bringing to his next dinner party.

WELCOME TO THE TEAM! WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO VINESPRING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

During my interview process, I had the pleasure of meeting with both co-founders of VineSpring, Jamison Morrow, and Chris Towt. I had a really good feeling after our initial chat. I felt they were both very kind and authentic people, with a real desire to see their company grow and mature. Our discussion was intellectually stimulating and gave me a sense of security. It became apparent that both Jamison and Chris want to build the best product possible, with a focus on quality, and that their company is at a very exciting point in its life. VineSpring is in a wonderful place of transition and growth, geared up for a major new release (V3). Previously, I worked at a Silicon Valley job where I was treated as disposable, and VineSpring’s culture is incredibly refreshing and a much-needed change. I am super excited to be here!

ARE YOU A WINEMAKER OR BREWER YOURSELF?

No, but both my siblings work in the wine industry, and my brother is a winemaker at Hill of Tara. I have had the honor of “punching down” grapes with him.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEW ROLE AT VINESPRING?

I am working with everybody at VineSpring to bring us to V3 release and beyond, building a best-in-class eCommerce product. I am here to help enable us to reach new milestones and goals, while also slowly relieving Jamison of some of his development workload so that he can move into more of a higher-level Leadership position and be less focused on our codebase.

AS THE NEW SENIOR DEVELOPER AT VINESPRING, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BIGGEST ASSET YOU BRING TO THE TABLE?

My focus on quality. I would rather complete a task at an average rate (as opposed to getting it out quickly) to maintain an exceptional product. At the end of the day, the users of our application and the experiences they have are what matters most. If we can create a simple, high-quality solution that saves people a lot of time, I’m happy.

WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?

Patience, simplicity, and compassion. I want to live in the moment and become a stronger person every single day.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT DIGGING INTO AT VINESPRING?

I am really excited about building our external REST API so that customers can do things like build custom storefronts or create Allocations programmatically. I believe that our REST API will be a defining point for us, and will help us grow tremendously.

IS THERE ONE TECHNOLOGY THAT VINESPRING USES THAT EXCITES YOU THE MOST?

There are many! React is awesome, Node.js is super fast and flexible, but I would say AWS in general. We are using a lot of services that make our lives so much easier; Lambda, CloudWatch, S3, and API Gateway, and more. I am super excited that we can scale our application.

DO YOU READ ANY WINE OR BEER RELATED NEWS? IF SO, WHICH DO YOU LOVE THE MOST?

In the past, I have read quite a bit of BeerAdvocate. I enjoy their beer profiles and ratings. They do a great job quantifying quality.

VINESPRING INTEGRATES WITH BEST-IN-CLASS PRODUCTS, LIKE MAILCHIMP AND SQUARE, TO GIVE ITS CUSTOMERS THE BEST EXPERIENCE. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR WHEN DECIDING WHICH PRODUCTS MAKE THE CUT?

The devil is in the details. When deciding on a product, you must weigh the pros and cons of each option. Some products will satisfy one need more than another, and the cost is a big factor of course. In the development world, we must do a lot of factoring of this type when deciding which third-party frameworks and libraries to use. Often, there are multiple that solve the same problem, and it takes a good bit of analysis to make an educated decision. It pays to do upfront research.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE TASTING ROOM EXPERIENCE?

When my grandmother visited from Ireland, our whole family went wine tasting at Benzinger and Chateau St. Jean in Sonoma. It was so much fun, and I will never forget the smile and enjoyment she had. I remember sitting outside with her during a lovely summer day, enjoying a nice glass of Sauvignon blanc. If you have never visited Sonoma, I highly recommend you do. It’s a place of natural beauty with many good restaurants and places to visit. On Tuesdays, we do a great Farmer’s market that takes up the whole downtown area. There is live music and lots of great food!

WHAT WINE (OR BEER) DO YOU PLAN ON BRINGING TO YOUR NEXT DINNER PARTY?

It would be whatever I have available, which would most likely be a bottle of wine given to me by my brother.

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THE FUTURE FOR DTC ECOMMERCE?

Lots of integration with other services to make the DTC experience as flexible, informational (for both consumer and producer), and profitable as possible. During our recent retreat to Breckenridge, Parker mentioned integrations with Alexa which is a great example. Another example would be increasing data integration for analytics and reporting purposes.