Growing with Fathom: Norman Karr

From time to time, Fathom invites teammates to reflect on their journey with Fathom. In this blog, Norman Karr, Software Engineer, shares the story of his experience at Fathom and his journey toward becoming a software engineer in the healthcare space.

If I'm being honest, my path toward becoming an engineer wasn't strictly traditional.

I graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Computer Science and had various tangential interests such as physics and healthcare. I tried seeing the various ways I could apply my skills in these other fields, which gave me the chance to participate in random, cool things.

Here are a few of them:

- Participating in ML research for a particle physics group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. A NeurIPS workshop accepted a first-name paper from me! (I'd generally characterize myself as a pretty big physics nerd.)

- Interning twice for Medtronic, a medical device company, and working on their diabetes team. I got to develop software for their insulin pumps and blood glucose sensors.

- Dabbling in computer vision research at Berkeley AI Research Lab (but it didn't really go anywhere).

One of my best experiences was interning at a legal tech startup called Intelllex. I spent the summer in Singapore in a small office with 15 other people where I learned a ton in a short time and developed close relationships. That experience sparked my serious interest in working in the startup space.

From newbie to mentor

I joined Fathom as a Software Engineer in September 2022. Joining straight out of college was pretty intimidating, but luckily, I was paired with brilliant mentors who helped me through the process and answered any questions I had. Working here has made me develop and grow my skills faster than I could have ever imagined. I've had the chance to participate in really interesting projects – one of my favorite things I've done here is working across our tech stack to build a wide breadth of knowledge and problem-solving skills.

Now that I've been here a while, the roles have reversed. I mentor new hires and actively support the team, which has been incredible. My job also requires that I work with and meet with different teams, like the sales team and customer success team, which has been great for getting more insight into the healthcare space and seeing the real impact our work has on customers.
‍
There's something new to take on or a fresh problem to handle every day, but it's always solvable because I work with the best team. Fathom has built a fantastic environment that encourages collaboration. People are smart, kind, respectful, accountable, and always happy to provide support. It feels like a cohesive team where the goal is to make sure everyone succeeds.

I'm super proud of Fathom's work and excited to see what the future has in store!