Brielle Harrison first joined D2L over 12 years ago as a co-op student on the team as a Technical Writer, later returning to D2L as a full-time employee, and has had an impressive career across the company. She leveraged her skills and D2L Brightspace expertise to move from technical writing to solutions engineering (SE), before briefly leaving D2L to try something new but “boomeranged” back to D2L to help build our Solutions Engineering Operations team. Most recently, she has accepted a role in Product Enablement. We sat down with Brielle to learn more about her journey.
- What initially drew you to D2L for your co-op and how did those early terms shape your career path?
- There were several reasons I was drawn to D2L for my co-op. I was looking for a role that would align to my skills and interests (majoring in English Literature and Political Science). I was really interested in a role that would provide me with more writing exposure after an initial co-op term doing promotional and blog-style writing, so technical writing was an interesting avenue to explore.
- I loved the concept of “transforming the way the world learns,” especially since I knew I would be taking online learning courses at some point in my education and have always been interested in and passionate about education.
- Being local was valuable to me. D2L HQ was less than five minutes from where I grew up, so I thought it was super cool to work in my hometown and support a local tech company. Kitchener already had a reputation for being a part of the emerging ed-tech world and it was exciting to be involved in that.
- What skills did you learn as a co-op student? How did these skills transfer to your full-time experiences?
- Since my role was technical writing for our product (basically, instructions for how to use every functionality for every tool), I gained a deeper understanding of the Brightspace platform as well as how to troubleshoot and navigate through issues. I developed a “button clicker” type personality, needing to explore every aspect of a tool to gain the fullest understanding possible.
- Technical writing requires brevity and clarity, which helped me become a better communicator. I gained a lot of experience distilling highly technical terms and concepts into easily readable and understandable resources and practiced communicating concepts in many ways to appeal to different roles or users
- What was it about D2L that motivated you to continue, past co-op, to explore full-time opportunities?
- There were a few factors that motivated me:
- Culture: A big factor was the team and supportive company environment. I had a great manager who always encouraged my professional development (PD) and growth. I also knew many folks, including people on my team, who had leveraged their skills to take on other roles within D2L, which was exciting to me because I could see that being at D2L offered more opportunities for growth in my career both inside and outside of my immediate technical writing team.
- Impact: I was also a Brightspace user both as a student and as a teaching assistant and knew how valuable the product was in education. I knew it would be even more relevant for future generations as well.
- Location: I am a Kitchener local so the opportunity to stay in the “Kitchener Tech Hub,” stay close to my family, and have a minimal commute was also really appealing.
- Mission: D2L’s mission to transform and improve the way the world learns really resonated with me and it still does to this day, perhaps even more so now that I am a parent with school-aged children.
- Perks: D2L also offered perks such as the ability to work from home, flexibility, and cool office spaces. One fun fact about my journey is that I have worked at three different D2L HQs since my first co-op term.
- How did your full-time role as a technical writer differ from your co-op and how did your co-op prepare you for full-time work?
- When I got hired full-time, I reported to the same manager that I did during my co-op. She encouraged me to explore what I did and didn’t like along with what else I wanted to learn. My transition from co-op to full-time was seamless because I was also given real, impactful work when I was a co-op student. There was no busy work or menial tasks. I was trusted as any member of the team to contribute, and my manager always made sure I was challenged and learning.
- The biggest difference going full-time was that I had more collaboration with other departments. For example, I joined the Development Team daily stand-up to ensure I was informed about upcoming product changes on products I was writing documentation for. This collaboration exposed me to new concepts like agile, kanban, and more. As a byproduct of these meetings, I also got exposure to other teams and their processes/functions at D2L, giving me a greater understanding of the company overall.
- What was the most challenging part of transitioning from technical writing to the Solutions Engineering team, and how did you adapt?
- The biggest challenge was going from an internal-only facing role to a client-facing role. Things like demoing our product, hosting webinars, traveling and answering requests for proposals (RFPs) were all new things I had to adapt to. I have a background in performing arts, so I leaned on these skills to help me feel more comfortable being in front of clients and speaking to large audiences. I knew the product and was a strong writer from my time working on the Documentation team which helped me succeed in answering RFP questions. The SE team has a great culture of helping each other out and learning/sharing from one another, so I always felt like I could go to my team for support and guidance. I am a huge believer in listening to feedback with an open mind and always asking how I can continue to improve.
- You briefly left D2L for another opportunity and then decided to return. What motivated you to come back, and how did your perspective change after rejoining the company?
- I heard from some friends who were still working as SEs that another former colleague was starting a new team in the department. It was going to be focused on “solutions engineering operations,” and the main goals were to improve our product demos, save time, create efficiencies and generally make the SE lives easier. SE operations was an emerging trend in the job market at the time and I was really excited about the opportunity to work on something innovative and impactful. When I joined the SE Ops team, it was just me and my leader, and close to five years later, we had grown to a team of eleven, doing impactful work that helped the SE team and the organization as a whole. Some other motivations included that D2L has very flexible work-from-home policies (which is important to me as a mom of young kids). The boomerang incentives were also a strong pull. Finally, I knew I’d be returning to a team I loved, with plenty of opportunities to grow, and a supportive mentor/manager committed to helping me set and achieve my goals.
- What do you think sets D2L apart in terms of culture, innovation, or career development opportunities?
- I think there are a lot of things that set D2L apart from other companies I’ve worked with such as:
- We have a strong learning culture at D2L. We have access to the annual SkillsWave stipend, employee-led committees organizing learning opportunities that transcend company or role requirements, mentorship programs like the Women in Action mentorship program, and great onboarding like WIN, SE onboarding, business development representative onboarding, and more).
- Boomerangs also set us apart. A boomerang is an employee like me who leaves the company and then returns. D2L has more boomerangs than I have ever encountered at another company. Some advantages to a large boomerang population include that they often have extensive product and internal process knowledge, and they can (re)onboard to the company quickly.
- As I experienced in my terms, D2L co-op is a great way to get real life practical experience and network with other like-minded individuals in a paid environment.
- If you could offer just one piece of advice to co-op students transitioning to full-time roles, what would it be?
- Keep an open mind and say yes to opportunities to learn. You never know what you will discover you are interested in. I would have never landed where I am now without being open to experiences that were out of my initial skillset.
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