Welcome to the launch of our new series, “Meet the Makers.” We’re excited to introduce you to some of the great tech talent we’re lucky to have here at Cedar, and to give you a better idea of what Cedar is all about.
As one of the leading digital health startups, Cedar combines data science and machine learning to build cutting-edge, consumer-centric technology that improves the financial experience in healthcare — helping consumers (as well as payers and providers) navigate an increasingly complicated healthcare system.
Let’s meet Greta Moseson, who joined us in 2019.
Name: Greta Moseson
Role: Software engineer
Hometown: Portland, OR
My work background:
I’ve had a non-traditional (although I think increasingly common) path to software engineering. In college, I studied political science and economics, and after graduating, I worked as a program manager at a human rights organization. In that role I worked closely with a web developer who I hired to build a site for one of our grant projects. I became increasingly interested in the work he was doing, so I started learning how to code on the side.
I realized programming offered a career path that was challenging, where I could keep learning on the job and would offer me a lot of flexibility long-term. I decided to attend a programming bootcamp to learn the basics of web development, and then a condensed computer science program at NYU.
My first job as a developer was working at a small ride-sharing startup, where I built a mobile app for drivers to track vehicle locations. Over the past five years, I’ve had a chance to work with different technologies and in different industries, from transportation to healthcare.
Why I chose Cedar:
The people. When I started at Cedar, I’m not sure I had a great sense of where the product would go. But I was impressed by the people I met — both in terms of their technical knowledge, and their humility and passion for improving the healthcare experience. I thought it would be a great place to grow my skills while helping to build something worthwhile.
What I do here:
I’m a Tech Lead on one of the engineering teams that deal with what we call our post-visit product. We handle the part of the product that patients interact with after their doctor or hospital visit. That involves building out new features and responding to requests from our clients. My team also partners closely with Cedar’s data science team to implement experiments that help us better understand consumers and improve the product.
My favorite tool:
I’ve started using Jupyter Notebooks as part of my development workflow, after learning about it from some strong advocates within the company (thanks, Juan Gonzales!). It’s a great tool for testing out scripts against production or analytics data. And it can be really useful for local development, since you can save cell output and re-run parts of the code line by line.
Current project(s):
I’m working with my team to scope out upcoming projects—including increasing the flexibility of our payment plans, expanding our single sign-on offerings for different clients, and working with the data science team to include machine learning in some of our decision-making.
Proudest achievement:
Learning to bake this year! It’s an ongoing process, but I can now make chocolate croissants. Also, switching careers. It’s easy to feel stuck in a certain path, so knowing that you can make changes and end up somewhere you never expected is cool.
At Cedar, I worked on a project this year to allow patients to apply discounts to payment plans. This feature is being rolled out as an experiment by our data science team, to find out what combination of factors will make it possible for patients to pay their bills (who otherwise wouldn’t be able to). I love that this project actually has a direct impact on making bills more affordable.
What excites me most about Cedar’s mission:
The idea that we can make a positive impact on one of the worst parts of people’s healthcare experience. When you try to understand why the US healthcare system is broken, it quickly gets confusing and overwhelming. I like that Cedar chose one piece of the system to focus on — medical billing — and has since been able to expand its focus and take on other challenges.
My favorite company value:
I’ll choose one of our engineering team values: “Learn, Share, Help.”
We have a culture that recognizes that everyone has something to contribute, and we can all learn from each other. On the engineering team, we have tech talks, pair-programming, and frontend and backend meetings, as well as maker demos in which people can share what they’re working on, or float new ideas that they’d like to try out.
Weird fact about me:
When I moved to New York, I was the guacamole columnist for a blog about nachos.
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Interested in any of our open tech roles? Our team is growing fast, and we would love to hear from you. Check out our current job postings: https://cedar.com/careers/
