In January of 2000, after realizing that the Y2K bug didn’t end the world and she would need a job after all, Jess Allred joined AT&T Broadband/Comcast as a telephony provisioner. She spent her early career building her technical expertise, becoming a SME in telephony. After the launch of VOIP in 2005, Jess was promoted to Process Analyst, defining best practices for the new voice product. One day her new boss came to her and asked, “Do you know how to write business requirements?” Never being one to shy away from a challenge, Jess promptly replied “Sure!” and as her boss walked away, proceeded to google “How do you write business requirements?” That google search served her well and she was quickly promoted to Software Analyst, embarking on a career path that would eventually lead her to Senior Software Engineer. Jess dove into new products and technologies with the same fearless curiosity, never letting ‘not knowing’ something stop her. Her role as a leader came about in 2016 when she took over a software engineering team as their manager. Thankfully this time no google searches were required, and she found that she loved leadership. Jess spent the next five years managing engineers in various roles in architecture, system engineering, security, and operations.
Today, Jess finds herself, a senior engineering manager, leading a diverse talented team of QA engineers in Comcast’s VIPER organization. Jess spends her days focused on her team, and supporting her organization in their employee engagement committee and DE&I councils.
When not at work, Jess spends her time with her family and their spoiled dog, Reshi. During the pandemic she took up several new hobbies including embroidery, home improvement, gingerbread building, and tabletop gaming. She will happily talk for hours about any of them, just ask her.
