First up, tell us a bit about yourself and your role here at Zego.
I’m an engineer at Zego, and I’ve worked here for about four months. I was born and raised in New York and initially danced with New York City Ballet for three years before switching to an economics degree and working for a couple of years at Goldman Sachs doing business strategy. I then went to a coding bootcamp and worked for American Express on a front-end team. After a year, I moved to London and started working for Zego.
Starting from when you log on each morning, what does a typical day look like for you?
I usually log on around 9am and do a combination of looking at code reviews and catching-up on Slack and emails. Our morning stand-up is at 10:15am where we talk through what we’ve worked on the previous day, what we’ll be working on that day and if we have any blockers. After stand-up, I dive into whatever I’m currently working on and tend to focus on that for the majority of the day. Occasionally, this is broken up by team meetings for planning, retrospectives or broader engineering meetings such as our front-end guild. For the most part though, it’s just me and the code, which I love.
What’s your favourite part of your day?
For me, it’s picking up a ticket and running with it. First diving into the development part, going through code review, working with design and business stakeholders to be sure that the project matches their expectations, and finally deploying the code to production.
What’s the best thing about your job?
What I’ve loved about Zego is having the opportunity to pick up any tickets that you see. I joined as a front-end developer but have had the chance to write small build scripts and pick up back-end tickets. The fact that we’re a start up means you can try your hand at whatever work needs to be done. At Zego it really is a team effort - if you raise your hand and say you’re taking something on but you’re not 100% certain on the best way to do it, people are always available for code chats to help.
What would you say is the biggest challenge you face in your day-to-day work? How do you resolve it?
There’s always something new to learn - for me, this is why I wanted to go into engineering, as you’re constantly being challenged. I moved teams about a month after I first started, which meant new products, new teammates and new ways of working. For me, the challenge of something new can be scary, but really enables you to learn from others, step in to figure something out and grow.
What opportunities for learning and development do you have here at Zego?
Zego offers the opportunity to pair - which means two engineers sitting in front of the same computer screen trying to figure out how to implement a solution. As a junior engineer, that’s something I really appreciate. There’s also a budget that allows you to get additional materials, including books and courses. So for me, I’ve leveraged this for online courses to learn more about our back-end platforms and the frameworks that we use. Pre-Covid, we had the opportunity to go to conferences as well. There’s definitely support for you to go and do your own self-learning and upskill.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I still love to dance, so before the lockdown I was going to a couple of ballet classes on weeknights and on the weekends. I just got to London so I’m still exploring the city and taking long walks to get to know different neighborhoods.
What’s the social side of Zego like?
It’s definitely a very open and friendly environment. This was honestly, the sense that I got from my interviews. My interviews were remote from New York, and even then I still was able to sense the emphasis on a social work environment where you would be surrounded by smart, fun and creative colleagues. We have weekly catch-ups with our managers, which is something that I was looking for as a junior engineer. This support takes into account how you’re doing overall, ensuring you have all the resources that you need to grow and thrive. This has been really helpful for me as someone who has recently moved to a new country.
What’s your favourite thing about working here and why?
The people - any time you have a question, there’s always someone ready to answer or point you in the right direction. People are very friendly and want to help, with everyone aligned to the same goal of making the best products we can for Zego. The collaborative, warm work environment makes me truly enjoy work even with the challenges of coronavirus.