Meet KJ
For our April Employee Spotlight, we’re excited to introduce you to KJ Chabra, Software Developer Manager at Altus Assessments! And, we’re hiring on his team! Check our job posts here, and continue to read more about KJ.
Driven, generous, knowledgeable, dedicated, diligent, basketball fanatic — these are the words we received from the Altus team to describe KJ. With his get-it-done personality, coding expertise and willingness to help regardless of how busy he may be, it’s no wonder he’s an integral part of the Altus team! Moreover, as one of the first few full-timers at Altus, KJ has been an instrumental contributor to the overall technical development of the CASPer test.
Working with KJ is like a fine wine, it gets better with age. He is one of the smartest, most modest and most caring friends and colleagues I have ever worked with. He cares a lot about our company’s product and its success, you can see it in all the apps he’s worked on and when training the dev team to tackle bugs and new features. He is an integral part of the Altus team and I couldn’t imagine working without him! - Ashley Henderson, Senior Operations Coordinator
KJ is a talented problem solver, and credits this to his diverse educational background which exposed him to many different concepts and methods of analyzing situations. In high school, KJ found that math and science weren’t really his thing, instead developing his interests in photography and videography after taking several courses. Wanting to explore his creative side further, he did a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Ryerson University in Toronto where he learnt to code and created art through technology mediums. One fascinating project he worked on, where they built a weather mapping drawing tool to turn weather data into visual patterns and drawings! Check out this video to see these stunning visual pieces of art and weather.
After finishing his undergraduate degree, KJ pursued a Masters of Digital Media at Ryerson, in the same cohort as a couple of other future Altus employees! He found that his courses focused on business, which provided an intriguing challenge. At the same time, he also started working for the Centre for Research Work and Disability Policy to get more development experience. Towards the end of his master’s degree, an opportune encounter introduced KJ to the chance to join Altus as a developer. When asked what interested him about joining an early-stage start-up, KJ said that he saw it as an unparalleled learning opportunity and looked forward to the challenge of building the testing platform from the ground up.
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KJ’s very thorough in his approach to sharing knowledge or new ideas with the team. His integrity and work ethic are well respected and communicate his trustworthiness. - Leah Laposta, Quality Assurance Specialist
KJ joined Altus as its 6th full-time team member in September 2015, where he was given the chance to explore any ideas he had to improve the envisioned platform. “Everyone is supportive of what you want to do and what you want to learn,” he says, “which gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and room to grow!” Indeed, as the current Software Development Manager, KJ makes sure that this culture is maintained even as the team has grown to 8 members. He credits the team’s ability to constantly revamp the testing experience and implement new features to this collaborative culture. “It’s what makes me excited to come to work every day. I’ve been here for five years soon, and I’ve not been bored once!”
KJ is an inventor, problem solver, and talented developer. He quickly adapts to change, works well under pressure with a positive attitude, and is detail-oriented. He goes beyond what is asked of him by and contributes his feedback continuously to his team. We all greatly appreciate the interest and passion he has for the projects we work on! - George Guja, Software Developer
When he’s not working, KJ is still learning to improve his technical skills — whether it be new frameworks, exploring Amazon Web Services or learning new concepts in the development world. He often attends programs at OneEleven, where Altus is located, to meet other co-founders and software developers to gain new insights into current problems and brainstorm creative solutions.
One thing KJ is known for at Altus though, is his extreme love of sports, especially the Raptors and basketball. The entire team still talks about KJ’s reaction to the Raptors winning the NBA championship! If there’s a sports game playing in the office, you’ll know who set it up. And, it will likely have a pizza or two involved. Thank you KJ for making Altus a curious and entertaining place to work.
And don’t forget, we’re hiring! Check out our current technical postings here.
