Lee Geiger

John Kinsella: “Is this Heaven?”

Ray Kinsella:  “It’s Iowa.”

John Kinsella: “Iowa? I could have sworn this was Heaven.”

Keith Geiger, Senior Software Engineer. I like the sound of that.

There hasn’t been much to write about The Skinny Kid lately. Iowa may be Heaven, but curfew arrives early in corn country. Like many of us, Keith works from home most of the time, and there’s only so many excursions he and his girlfriend Jude can make from their two-bedroom love nest in Cedar Falls ($1,000/month, y’all) to sample the exotic cuisine of Applebee’s or the Olive Garden. But he’s all good, and what more can a parent, who hasn’t seen their child in nearly two years because of the pandemic, ask for in times like these.

He’s also recently promoted. Last week his boss at SciPlay called Keith into his office and told him management wanted to add the moniker of “senior” to his job title, as in Senior Software Engineer. At 27, no less. That’s cool. That’s very, very cool.

But like most things in life, the real story is about the journey and not the destination. And that’s important, because while Keith’s new title makes me smile, it’s how he earned the promotion that makes his old man proud.

Keith joined SciPlay, then a subsidiary of Scientific Games, in June 2017 as an Associate. A Game Development graduate from Full Sail University in Florida, he was assigned to a team programing software for casino, casual and bingo mobile video games. Not as sexy as programming fantastical shoot-‘em-up extravaganzas like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, but hey, he had to start somewhere.

However, soon after walking into the building, management could tell something was different about him. Keith said “yes” a lot. To everything. Yes, he’d work late. Yes, he’d help that guy. Yes, he’d fix that. Yes, yes, yes. Keith did anything and everything that was asked of him, no matter how minor or menial the task. And why not, he figured. This was Cedar Falls, after all, a small Iowa college town that rolls up the sidewalks every night at eight o’clock.

Like the rest of his class that joined SciPlay in 2017, Keith received the company’s perfunctory semi-annual raises for a few years, and in 2020 he was promoted like everyone else to Software Engineer. This was just the way things are done at SciPlay. His next advancement opportunity, he was told, wouldn’t likely happen for many years. That’s also just the way things are done.

But management had a different plan for Keith. They had a shiny gold nugget in their midst, and they were going to make the most of him. Instead of just programming games, Keith became, in essence, the company’s “fixer.” He spent the next twelve months fixing programming issues associated with not only his team, but other teams as well. He took his knowledge of software engineering and proceeded to adjust, polish, and strengthen thousands of lines of code across the company’s various product lines. He became expert at solving SciPlay’s programming botches, bottlenecks, and bugs. Afterwards he was asked to document his fixes so the firm’s other software engineers could learn from him. He became, for all practical purposes, “The Guy.” You know, as in “call the guy to fix this,” or “reach out to the guy and see if he knows what’s going on.” You get my drift.

Keith’s bosses liked what they saw. They took a career path that normally takes 3, 5, or 10 years to evolve and fast-tracked it down to single lap around the sun. They wisely promoted Keith to Senior Software Engineer, not only because he had earned it, but because they value and, ultimately, need him.

Yes, I’m biased, but I’m not the least bit surprised at Keith’s success. I said it back then and I’ll say it again now; whoever hired Keith Geiger after he graduated from college was going to get a Carnegie Mellon mind at a Full Sail University price. But that gap was bound to narrow, and it has, only much quicker than I had anticipated. Case in point: Remember Keith’s clumsy start as a freshman cross country runner in high school? Remember how amazingly well he ran as a senior, becoming a Team Captain in the process? That’s Keith. Bet against him and you’ll lose.

If Keith were a stock, I’d mortgage the house and buy him. And he’s already preparing for his next challenge. Keith is teaching himself a programming platform called Unreal Engine, the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation platform for video games. And while he’s not actively looking for a new job, I’m anticipating a call telling The Pretty Blond and me that he’s leaving the cozy confines of Iowa and moving to a slick new job in Los Angeles. Or Tokyo.

In conclusion, after entering the software industry’s version of the witness protection program, I’m pleased to report that The Skinny Kid is happy, healthy, in love and thriving. Who knows…maybe Iowa really is Heaven?