Meet Kat, Senior TechOps Associate

Welcome to Furey Stories, our series spotlighting the innovators, problem-solvers, creatives, and doers at Furey. Each quarter, we chat with a member of our team to learn about their work and what helps them thrive. 

As a member of our TechOps team, Kat loves a good challenge and building projects from scratch. She’s a big believer in pursuing one's interests, evident in her transition from public accounting to a tech-oriented role at Furey. When she's not writing formulas or working with Google Apps Script, you'll likely find her streaming the newest indie films or curling up with a good fantasy novel.

Read on to get to know Kat.

What brought you to Furey?

Kat Yan: I majored in accounting and information systems and started my career at PwC as a public accountant. While working in audit, I had the chance to work with tools such as Alteryx that automate the flow of data, and it got me really interested in all the ways technology can make the accounting process more efficient. It was actually my favorite part of the job and I was definitely looking to do more of that.

When I started looking for my next role, there were two things that were really important to me. I wanted to dive deeper into tech and also find a team that I really enjoyed working with. So Furey was just the right fit! I love our TechOps team and the work that we do, and have really enjoyed problem-solving and finding creative ways to help everyone work more efficiently. 

‍What does a typical day of a Senior TechOps Associate look like?

On any given day, I’m usually working on a number of different tools. For example, I might start the day by writing formulas or a script to make a month-end close task more efficient for the accounting team. Then I might switch gears a bit and work on a special project, such as a custom tool for a client or a feature request for the accounting team. In general, I’m always problem-solving and identifying ways we can power tasks through technology. 

As part of my day-to-day, I also dedicate time to our quarterly TechOps research and development (R&D) projects, which focus on using technology in new and innovative ways to improve our current processes. My project for this quarter is building out a tool using Google Apps Script that will leverage Stripe’s API to pull data from Stripe directly into Google Sheets. I think it'll be super impactful since so many of our clients are on Stripe, and we’ll be able to quickly refresh the data in our tools with the click of a button, which is what we currently do with QuickBooks and Bill.com data.

‍What’s your favorite project that you've worked on?

Kat Yan: My favorite project has definitely been revamping the financial package that we send to our clients. The new version pulls in the financial statements directly from Quickbooks using its API and then compiles the data all through Google Apps Script. This process is a lot less manual for our team and provides a more accurate and standardized output for our clients. It was so rewarding to build out this new template from the ground up and even more rewarding to see the team using it.

What’s something that you recently learned? 

Kat Yan: I’ve been learning how to use Notion to track my personal growth and goals for the year. I like how it functions as a note-taking app but also as a database, and there are so many ways to automate things which definitely aligns with my interest in learning new tech. It’s a super powerful resource for our team as well, and we’re looking into using it for one of our upcoming TechOps R&D initiatives to help us keep track of the tasks and projects in our queue. 

What’s something people may not know about you? 

Kat Yan: I’m very artistic and I love pretty much all forms of art. Music is definitely my favorite, and I would love to be able to make music just as a side hobby one day. I’m also such a movie nerd and love A24 and any artsy & indie movies. I even have a Letterboxd account where I rate and occasionally review pretty much every movie I've ever watched. 

What’s your favorite way to recharge?

Kat Yan: I’ve gotten back into reading recently, and I’m currently reading a fantasy novel that someone on the team recommended. It’s been so restorative to curl up in bed with my cats after a long day and just get pulled into a really good story.

What career advice do you have for someone looking to try something new?

Kat Yan: Find the things in your day-to-day that are really exciting to you, and seek out opportunities to do more of that. If you’re interested in technology, find a way to incorporate it into what you already do, even if it’s starting out small like testing out some new Excel formulas to see how they can change the way you work. It’s all about being open-minded to exploring new ways of doing things since that can help you learn and pivot towards what you’re truly passionate about.