CHAPTER 1
GRACE
Grace Boden stared up at the imposing skyscraper. Her heart raced in her chest, and she clasped her hands in front of her to stop herself from twiddling her fingers.
Ever since Grace had become a developer, she’d dreamed of working at a company like MatchupNow. Until now, her jobs had mainly consisted of bug fixes and grunt work for small companies, where she never really felt like she was making a difference. Today, though, she was beginning a developer role here, at one of the best dating apps in the country. It was the kind of role in which she could actually improve the product. In doing so, she could also help the tens of thousands of people who used MatchupNow to find their significant others—and she could prove to herself that she could contribute.
Grace took a deep breath, smoothed her slacks, and stepped inside. The air conditioning was refreshing after the warm June morning. In the lobby, a woman was waiting. She wore a blue dress and high heels, and looked to be about thirty, the same age as Grace. Grace recognized her as Autumn Kepler, her future boss and one of the people who’d interviewed her.
“Hi there.” Autumn strode over and held out a hand, which Grace took.
“Hi, Autumn. Nice to see you again.”
“Likewise!” Autumn smiled as she shook Grace’s hand, then released it. “Come on up, and I’ll give you a tour. As well as being the head of the dev-ops team, I’ll be your buddy this first week as you get settled in.”
“Great.” Grace followed Autumn to the elevators, and they began the ride up to the fifteenth floor. Grace remembered the building from the last of her five interviews. She’d been nervous then, too, but at least now she actually had the job.
“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Autumn said, “we’re launching an update to the algorithm in a few weeks, so it’s all hands on deck.”
“Excellent.” Grace grinned. She liked the thought of finally being able to really flex her coding muscles and show off her skills. “I’ve heard about the update, but I don’t know the details. What’s the focus?”
“Improving long-term compatibility of our matches,” Autumn explained. “We have lots of people who meet on the app hitting it off right away, because they share similar interests and are a good match on paper, but struggling in the long term over deeper compatibility issues.”
“I see,” Grace said. “That sounds like a tricky problem to fix. I was expecting something like improving load times or updating the graphics.”
“We’ll do that, too.” Autumn winked. “Don’t worry; the dev-ops team gets our hands on all of the interesting code sooner or later.”
“I can’t wait to get started.”
“I bet.” Autumn grinned. The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into a wide hallway with plenty of natural light. Autumn paused and turned to Grace. “Do you use MatchupNow yourself?”
This felt like a personal question to Grace, but she supposed it wasn’t so different from any company asking if its employees used their product.
“No,” she admitted. “I just don’t have time to date, unfortunately. But if I did, I’d definitely use the app. I really admire how different it is from other apps—instead of trying to make people swipe on more and more matches, I like how it encourages deep connection through long-form questionnaires and conversation prompts.”
“Great answer,” Autumn said. She nudged Grace’s shoulder. “But you’ve got the job, so you can be honest.”
“I am being honest.” Grace smiled. “And, honestly, I’m also excited to see how I can improve the app.”
“Good. We’re happy to have you on board.”
Grace laughed. “Thank goodness.” She tucked a strand of her chin-length brown hair behind her ear and smiled at Autumn. “So, how long have you been working here?”
“A few years.” Autumn led the way down the hall, past a series of open-plan offices. “At MatchupNow, we make sure everyone can work in the environment where they’re most comfortable,” Autumn explained. “We have desks, tables, even beanbag chairs. Plus, we have a cafeteria with complimentary food and drinks,nap pods, and a game room for when you need to blow off some steam.”
Grace looked around with wide eyes. This was a completely different world from the companies she’d worked for before—though she couldn’t imagine herself taking advantage of the nap pods. The complimentary food and drinks, on the other hand, sounded great.
“What a nice office,” she said.
“It is. Our founder and CEO, Alex Medson, prioritizes employee satisfaction. And security. That’s the other thing I should mention. Alex is a real stickler for security, so all the new updates are stored on a single laptop with a clear chain of custody so that no competitors can get their hands on it.”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “A single laptop?”
“I know.” Autumn rolled her eyes conspiratorially. “It makes our work more difficult, but we make do. Everyone works on small components of code on their own computers, which we then compile on that one laptop. That’s the only place you can see the whole codebase together. If you ever need to work on it, you can check the laptop out for a few hours to fix bugs or look through past work.”
“And who keeps that one laptop?” Grace asked.
“Alex does.” Autumn smiled. “He checks every line of code himself before it goes anywhere. And he does most of the bug fixes himself.”
