Meet Brian Nixon, Engineering Manager on our Data Infrastructure team. From driving technical planning to mentoring engineers and maintaining a culture of flexibility, Brian is helping shape the future of personalized marketing—while working remotely from Seattle.
Since joining Attentive in 2021, I’ve been part of a team that’s grown quickly—and grown thoughtfully. Our work evolves constantly, but one thing has stayed the same: our commitment to delivering value to our customers and their subscribers. As an Engineering Manager on our Platform Engineering team, I focus on building a reliable data foundation and creating space for engineers to do their best work.
Here's what a typical day looks like for me
8:00am - Morning rituals
Seattle winters are dark, so the first thing I do is open the curtains to let the spring sunlight in. Brewing coffee, on the other hand, is a year-round must, so I head to the kitchen to put the kettle on and start grinding beans. My partner and I catch up over coffee before the day kicks into gear. That calm morning energy helps ground me before diving into the fast-paced life on Attentive Engineering.
9:00am - Quick commute (to my home office)
One of the perks of leading a fully remote team at a remote-friendly company? No commute. The flip side? My East Coast colleagues have a three-hour head start, so my Slack is buzzing with messages.
I start my day by responding to Slacks and reviewing pull requests. Our team owns the reliability and availability of Attentive’s data storage systems—crucial infrastructure that supports personalized marketing for thousands of brands. We keep things humming and evolving behind the scenes while planning for scale as the company grows.
10:00am - Collaborative planning
First meeting of the day: a vendor sync. We’re doing a migration and want to ensure uninterrupted availability where we can. Change is a constant in infrastructure, but surprises are a choice. There’s always a lot to align on with external stakeholders, from new features to incident response. It’s part collaboration, part planning, part philosopher joke exchange (because those are the kinds of jokes you can expect on our team).
11:00am - Connecting with new talent
Next up: an interview with a potential new teammate, because, you guessed it, we’re hiring!
We host a few different types of interviews during the process, so I make sure I’m prepared and I’ve familiarized myself with the candidate’s background. I want to make sure that our interviews are a valuable use of time, both for my team and for candidates.
Nailing an Attentive Engineering interview isn’t about finding the one right answer; it’s about showing us how you think, so my questions are open-ended enough to offer plenty of flexibility for the interviewee to share what they find relevant.
Hiring is a two-way street. I want candidates to walk away with a clear picture of what it’s like to work here—collaborative, fast-paced, and full of smart, humble people, so I leave plenty of time for them to ask questions.
I like to wrap with one of my favorite prompts: “What’s one thing you’re afraid might go wrong if you join this team?” It opens up an honest conversation and helps us build trust from day one.
12:00pm - Recharge
Back-to-back meetings take a lot of energy, so I carve out time for a lunch break each day—and a quick break in the garden to see the plants growing and the local birds taking advantage of our three bird baths. I’ve found that stepping away helps me come back focused and ready for the second half of the day.
1:00pm - Building, unblocking, and strategic planning
Afternoons are usually filled with planning or troubleshooting. If someone gets paged (it happens!), I help coordinate and debug with the team. These moments show how strong our culture of collaboration is—we don’t just solve problems, we learn from them.
When I have a break in my meeting schedule, I’ll sometimes use it to dive into longer-term planning. After a recent chat with an engineer on another team, I realized a past feature request might solve a current challenge they’re facing. I start mapping connections and outlining a solution we could build into our roadmap. Cross-team collaboration like this is what keeps our work so impactful.
2:00pm - Team standups and 1:1s
We check in on progress, surface blockers, and share context. Good coworkers are the best part of a good team so it’s also good for everyone to see each other’s faces and have some social time together to keep that bond strong.
I also hold 1:1s with direct reports to talk about career goals, ongoing projects, and team dynamics. It’s important to me that our engineers feel supported—and stretched—in the particular ways that matter to them and their life journey.
3:00pm - Coffee and sunlight break
I try to squeeze in a second walk while the sun’s still out. Leading a remote team requires being intentional about self-care. Taking a step away from the screen and moving your body is just as much a part of professional practice as meetings.
4:00pm - Heads-down time
A perk of working West Coast hours is that there’s plenty of focus time in late afternoons. I use this time to get feedback from my team on our quarterly planning cycle before I share it with the rest of the company.
Sometimes I’ll write code to keep my technical chops sharp—as an Attentive manager, staying close to the work is known as essential in order to lead a team effectively.
Post-work - Log off and unwind
I shut my laptop and put it away to complete the transition from work to personal time. Then it’s time to cook dinner and relax with my partner. Tonight’s pizza night!
Why I’m here
At Attentive, I get to do work that challenges me, with teammates I trust, and the flexibility to show up fully in both my career and life. We’re building for scale and building with care—and I’m excited to be part of what’s next. Want in? Apply for one of our open roles!
