One of the most exciting projects to be working on in the Rosie world is our new retailer-branded mobile apps. The development team is currently hard at work translating the online experience to what will soon be mobile apps tailored to Rosie retailers’ branding. Matthew Hughes, DevOps Engineer, is part of the team making retailer mobile apps a reality. We chatted with him about his role and what goes into creating the next phase of Rosie’s mobile experience.

Everyone has a different journey that led them to working at Rosie. What’s yours?

I worked at a consulting firm focused on DevSecOps (development, security, and operations), but eventually I decided to focus just on DevOps (development and operations) outside of the consulting world. I wanted to be a dedicated resource on a team. A recruiter told me about Rosie, so I decided to interview.

My team is super tight and close knit, with people who are happy to jump right in and help. Since the company is young and growing, it provides a lot of opportunities to try new things and develop our processes. At Rosie we say “nothing is sacred,” so we all have the opportunity to present our ideas and put them into action if we think we should try things a different way.

You’re on the team working on an exciting new product: Rosie Mobile. Our retailers will be able to offer their customers a fully branded, retailer controlled mobile app. Help us understand your role in this process.

My job is to help the development team continuously build the mobile apps quickly and efficiently. This is so we can deliver a reliable product to our end users, aka our retailers’ customers who will be shopping on the mobile apps. I’m also tasked with helping to figure out the best way to continuously provide updates to the apps once they go live on the app store for iOS and Android.

Many of us believe it takes a really long time to make a mobile app. Will Rosie be creating each retailer’s mobile app from scratch?

No, we’re creating one white label application. This means that the base level app for every retailer will look the same. We’ll then have different configurations for each retailer. These configurations include things like the retailer’s logo, brand colors, products, and some tools and features - this is really where the customization comes in.

What do you think is the most important reason retailers should get their own branded mobile app?

Having your own branded mobile app lets you provide a more custom experience to your shoppers. Rosie has an app now, but having your own store-branded app means you more fully control your customers’ end experience with your store.

Plus, there are so many different things you can leverage in a mobile app that you can’t when you’re shopping from a desktop. Getting the app now means you’re set up to take advantage of other cool capabilities in the future that you can only use with your phone, like using the camera and more.

Last question: what do you currently have in your Rosie cart?

Pickles for sure. My favorite ones are bread and butter jalapeno pickles. Then, I always buy blueberries and wasabi-ginger almonds. They’re really good!