What Our Software Engineer, Chris McCoy, Learned About Coding from Delivering Food and Life as a Pastor

Software Engineer Chris McCoy joined the QSRSoft team this year, and we’re thrilled to have him. He started as a paid intern, but was quickly brought on staff because of his exceptional coding and software development skills that solve real-world restaurant problems. In the past, Chris worked a series of odd jobs, from retail to food delivery. As a pastor of eight years, Chris brings what he’s learned from every experience—including a love for people and for solving problems—to every project. Here’s a bit about Chris’s journey to QSRSoft:  From QSR to Coding What might seem to some as small beginnings, Chris used as learning experiences that would set him up for success. “You can always learn something new from any job that you’re doing,” Chris explained in a recent guest spot on the Scrimba podcast. “For a while I worked as a manager at Chick-fil-A, and I got to practice talking to people, because you talked to 30 or 40 people an hour coming through the drive-thru. It’s always great to be in a position where you can learn something and grow.” How did Chris go from QSR to coding? “I messed around with coding a bit in high school, and then I didn’t touch it again until I was 33. Before that, I’d done every kind of work—retail, mowing grass, delivering groceries—but I started to think, ‘I want something that can engage my brain, something a little more fun.’”  That’s when Chris found Scrimba, an online e-learning resource for beginner coders. A self-described analytical thinker, Chris quickly took to coding. “It uses a different part of your brain to sit down and solve problems and find what’s broken,” said Chris. “You learn different and more efficient ways of doing things.”  Developing Software for the Real World  We initially brought Chris on board as part of a small group of interns. He shared in our first Hackathon, where participants were tasked with refining code for a new app project we were developing. The goal was to offer top performers a permanent position on staff, so we tasked them with a project to test their mettle. After we split them into teams, they set to work refactoring the files we gave them.   Chris explains his experience working on the project: “Whenever it got to the manager, he would give us some great feedback like ‘Really, we want to do it this way’ or ‘Have you thought about doing it this way?’”  Eventually, Chris and his team would see their project utilized in the real world—at a restaurant. This elated Chris: “That was pretty empowering, to get to write code that is immediately being used. That’s one of the things that’s so fun for me: to build out software and see the different ways that it can be applied.”   A Passion for Solving Problems  Chris is now a QsrSoft team member, and we love his passion for solving problems—even when things go wrong. “I tend to be pretty driven, and I try to achieve whatever my goal is,” said Chris. ”I just keep going. You have to, even on days when you feel like banging your head against the keyboard, looking for a capital ‘L’ that’s really supposed to be a lowercase ‘l’ that’s ruining the entire thing you’re building.”  Thankfully, Chris doesn’t have many of those days. In fact, when asked what he loves about his job, Chris had an immediate answer: “At the end of the day, to really see what you get to do and what you get to contribute, and just how fun it is to solve problems. It’s my favorite thing about it, finding the things that are broken and fixing them. And I’m just so grateful to get to spend my time doing something I love.”  And we’re grateful to have you as part of the QSRSoft team, Chris!  Learn how QSRSoft makes it easy to run great restaurants with the full suite of QSRSoft products, or request a demo today.  Interested in joining our team? We are always on the lookout for talented people to join QSRSoft.  Check out our career page HERE. If you don’t see anything that fits, submit your resume anyways and we’ll keep it on file for future job openings!