A little about me
Chenay Gladstone, Product & Data Scientist Specialist
My name is Chenay (/ʃəneɪ/) and I was born and raised in the hot Arizona desert. I grew up playing indoor volleyball – as you probably guessed, it’s hard to play outdoor volleyball year-round in my home state – and I discovered my love for language after moving to Germany at the age of 15. I’m currently a cat mother, living in Tempe, Arizona, and I still love playing volleyball (both indoor and at the beach when I’m on vacation).
Why I joined UpdateAI
In May 2020, I had just resigned from my teaching job amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Soon after, I was able to land a job doing content marketing for a rehabilitation center, but due to budgeting problems, the whole marketing team was laid off in the fall of 2020.
At that point, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I didn’t really want to go back into teaching, and my experience in marketing was limited. During my job search, my friend (from my time spent in Germany) had posted on LinkedIn about an opportunity at her cousin’s startup (UpdateAI) for a “content specialist.” The position piqued my interest immediately, so she introduced me to her cousin Josh Schachter, UpdateAI’s CEO. We talked, but I was declined the position due to there being another candidate with more experience.
Thankfully, about a week later I received an email from Josh, saying there was still an opportunity for me to join the team as a product and data science specialist. I took it. Admittedly, I didn’t know what to expect at the time. I just knew that I needed a job and that I could vaguely use my background in linguistics in this position. But as the position and UpdateAI have developed, I’ve been able to continue to leverage my passion for language and grammar and grow professionally in other areas that I otherwise would have probably neglected. It’s turned out to be a great fit.
What I do at UpdateAI
My main focus is on handling the human language aspect of things at UpdateAI. That means I look for language patterns and annotate data to help our data science team build and improve our model. I also lead our concierge team in liaising with our early customers. Of course, like at all startups, I also do plenty of other random things on the side. But that’s the beauty of being at a startup – you get to wear many different hats.
Why I'm so excited about UpdateAI
There are a few reasons I’m excited about UpdateAI and where we’re headed. But I always come back to this – our team is fantastic. We are all working towards the same goal: helping customers be the best customer-facing professionals they can be. Not only does that clear target help keep our team focused, but it’s also incredibly rewarding to know that we’re creating something helpful for others.
Which core company value I align with the most
“Diversity Matters.” All five of our company values (which you can find at the bottom of this page) are essential to me, but this principle especially speaks to me.
Being a Filipina-American vegan female who speaks English and German and has a name that’s more common in Oceana than in North America, I really value diversity. I love that my teammates are located all around the world, including Argentina, Ukraine, Malaysia and California, just to name a few places. I also love that we all have different native languages. Our diversity is a real asset, because it provides our team with several different ways of thinking about and approaching problem solving. Lastly, I love that our product doesn’t limit us to having customers in one geographic area. That’s perfect for our global team.