It is with great excitement that we extend a warm welcome to Maya Ziv, the newest addition to the Pavilion team! A recent graduate from Stanford University, Maya brings their expertise as a Software Engineer to our dynamic group. Dive into her interview to uncover Maya's enthusiasm for tackling complex problems, fondness for games, action-packed summer tradition, and more!
Why Pavilion?
For me, it was the combination of ambitious problems to solve and what we accomplish by solving them. Pavilion’s technical challenges are utterly fascinating - turns out building relevant, responsive search from a hodgepodge collection of local cooperative contract data from across the country where users can search for anything from “ice cream” to “bunker gear” to “Zendesk” is no small feat!
But beyond that, it has also been extremely rewarding to work on technology for public servants. It’s an honor to build for people who work so hard to provide the public with the services we need; getting to be a part of making local government better (and building for a population of users who are oft-forgotten!) has been deeply meaningful for me.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I love all things games related! Board games, card games, video games, roleplaying games, you name it - it’s probably on my weekly schedule. I also love to swing dance (specifically lindy hop, but I branch out with some regularity), and in true bay area software engineer fashion this year I’ve dipped my toe into rock climbing, which I’ve found really rewarding. Love to solve a little puzzle and climb some silly little rocks.
What’s unexpected about you?
Perhaps not unexpected once you get to know me, but I love to spend part of my summer every year working at a live-action roleplaying summer camp for teenagers called The Wayfinder Experience in upstate New York! Kids are smarter than all of us, and it has been so meaningful to me to watch them find themselves, find their voices, and grow into incredible people.
What’s a book you’ve read and enjoyed recently?
I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow earlier this year and was utterly blown away. I did a brief stint as a game developer back in college and the book was an incredibly accurate representation of what the games industry is like, with all its ups and downs. I’ve also never seen creative partnership be the primary relationship that’s explored between two main characters - a relationship that’s in many ways much more challenging than friendship or romance! All in all it was a beautiful snapshot of a world I hold very dear, and I highly recommend it.
