CenterEdge “Role” Call: Meet Rob Roberts

In “Role” Call posts, we feature some of our outstanding team members and the roles they play in delivering exceptional customer service to fellow coworkers and clients alike. Because, at CenterEdge, we believe our team is a big part of what makes us special.

Our team at CenterEdge continues to grow to meet the needs of each of our unique clients. Our software development team has added a number of new team members recently, and many bring new skills that will help us take our Advantage point of sale software suite into the future of the fun industry.

With this growth, we’ve had the need to move several of our great developers into leadership positions so that their experience can help shape the vision of our new team. Today’s team member is one of those new promotes: Rob Roberts, Software Development Team Lead over Advantage Research and Development.

Rob has been in software development for 17 years and has been an integral part of the CenterEdge team for just over four. But when asked about the hardest thing he has ever done in his life, we learned that software development is actually Rob’s second career. He started out as an auto mechanic, and due to an injury, he and his family made the difficult decision for him to go back to school to become a developer. He explains that developing and auto diagnostics share some similarities because both require a fair amount of visualization. You can’t always see it, but you need to be able to build and rebuild “the engine.”

With having two young children at the time, it couldn’t have been easy to embark on a new career, but that’s part of what we love about Rob. He is devoted to whatever it takes for our CenterEdge family to be successful, and he’s a genuinely hard-working guy. He’s someone you’d want to know in an emergency, because you can count on him to remain calm and cool under pressure.  Plus, he loves to write code that writes code. It’s like Inception!

In his own words:

What do you love about our CenterEdge clients?

They certainly keep things interesting! Our clients provide a challenge when they keep coming up with new ideas and ways the software can help them. It keeps things new and inspiring, so we’re not just maintaining what’s there – we’re always growing.

Which of our core values do you most identify with?

Probably Being Partners, especially now in this new role. As a software developer, I was pretty isolated before, but now I get to help and interact with more people. Plus, so many team members have been helpful along the way. They’ve brought new skills and perspective that make all of us better. We often think of our partners as the clients, but it’s definitely internal as well.

I know you told us about the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Can you also tell us something wild you did when you were younger?

I’m not sure if I should tell you this, but when I was young I had dreams of being a racecar driver. I needed the practice, so when I was 13, I used to sneak out and drive my parents’ cars around. They found out, though. I thought I was so slick putting gas back in, but my mom figured out pretty quickly what I’d been doing because I would put too much gas back in! (laughs). My poor parents.

We’re glad his racecar days are behind him, and that he still has his adventurous streak to help us create new solutions for our team and clients.

Say hi to Rob at rroberts@centeredgesoftware.com.