Profiles in Telehealth: Ed Mitchell - Staff Software Engineer
Get to know Wheel Staff Software Engineer, Ed Mitchell!
What’s your role at Wheel?
I’m a Staff Software Engineer at Wheel. I help build the software that connects Wheel's clinician network to our customer's patients and the tools that Wheel's Operations team uses to analyze and manage that marketplace.
I spend most of my day writing code. But, answering customer support questions, responding to automated alerts that monitor the system, and planning for the team's next projects are also very important parts of my job.
What’s your background? What did you do before working with Wheel?
I grew up in Virginia Beach and graduated from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor's in Computer Science.
After college, I worked in Raleigh, NC as a Software Engineer at NetApp, a storage company, then Zift Solutions, which is a channel marketing software company. After getting married, I moved to Austin where I started working for Spredfast, a social media marketing company.
I do some side work with an Austin-based video game website and podcast called 4PlayerNetwork. I spend most of my free time playing video games, going to breweries, and playing Pickleball.
Why did you join the Wheel team?
I was looking to work at a startup, and a former manager of mine knew Chris Norris, Wheel's CTO. On his LinkedIn, he has a quote, "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."
As someone who worked in marketing tech for many years, and after spending most of 2020 reflecting on whether that was the best use of my time and skills, that really spoke to me.
I have always been politically passionate about health care and felt that Wheel was the perfect way to marry that reflection and passion together.
What’s your favorite Wheel moment?
The first big project I worked on was the launch of a new product feature, Scheduled Consults, that was pivotal to helping Wheel sign a number of key customers, and it’s super exciting to see it be so successful.
One of my favorite moments was the demo we did of the refreshed onboarding flow. I wanted to show the whole workflow from the perspective of all the different stakeholders: the clinician applying, the team reviewing their application, and the team verifying their credentials.
One of the members of the recruiting team and I created a solution through multiple screen sharing that allowed us to seamlessly switch between the different points of view, and it worked flawlessly.
What do you think the future of healthcare holds?
Technology is inherently disruptive. Change happens slowly and then all at once. Fifteen years ago, it was nearly impossible to imagine holding an incredibly powerful computer in the palm of your hand. But now, it's so commonplace that we think nothing of it.
I believe health care technology is rife for disruption. Doctors and nurses want to provide care to their patients, not have to fight technology. Now, with the pandemic fundamentally changing how we all perceive virtual care, innovators are primed to change the landscape of medicine as we know it.
Thanks, Ed, for all your hard work with The Wheel Team! We appreciate everything you do.
Interested in joining our team? Check out the latest career opportunities with Wheel!
Get to know other team members through prior staff profiles with Renae Flowers - Associate Regulatory Counsel, Tanya Mahr - Content Lead, and Gabby Lorestani - Head of People.
