SOFTWARE CRAFTSPERSON
We pride ourselves in building well-crafted products for our clients. Our Craftspeople are continuously learning and sharing knowledge.
PROFILE OF A CRAFTSPERSON
We are looking for people who have a real thirst for teaching and learning and a desire to create quality software. You can be at any point in your professional journey and fit within our diverse community of craftspeople. You may aspire to become an effective advisor, an inspirational mentor, a skilled coder, an exceptional architect, a renowned technologist, a cloud solutions expert, an emphatic facilitator, or a visionary leader - we will provide you with the help, training, and support to take leaps in your professional journey. If you're not sure apply anyway and we'll help you decide.
Coding
Test Driven Development is second nature to us, our people are at different levels on the journey towards competence. For some, it is a case of small steps towards an emerging design, others feel comfortable in taking larger leaps during their TDD lifecycle. We all keep good design principles, such as SOLID, in mind while we develop software, however as our experience grows, we look wider and go to first principles such as simplicity, coupling and cohesion to a point where we have an intuitive understanding. We love to pair program and see it as an opportunity to learn from each other. We are proficient with at least one language and pride ourselves in our fluency with our chosen development environment. As our seniority grows we delve deeper into software design and take an active interest in subjects like Domain Driven Design, Architectural Patterns, Security and other more holistic characteristics of the software product.
Automation & Operations
We are automators. Although our craftspeople range in their automation skills, we all aspire to become skilled in crafting effective continuous delivery pipelines and systems that are easy to operate in production. We aspire to a DevOps culture. Most of us are skilled, to a good level, on the coding side and consider infrastructure as code as an important skillset. We enjoy working with cloud offerings such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. We find technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Puppet, etc. to be extremely valuable to achieving effective delivery pipelines and reliable platforms. Whilst we refrain from over engineering, we also aspire to use modern technologies to increase the efficiency, productivity and reliability of our software development process and software product.
Architecture
Our more junior people have a good awareness of architectural patterns. This awareness grows to a solid expertise among our more senior people. We know that there is no silver bullet when it comes to architectures and keep a keen interest in all flavours, not just the most popular at a particular time. We all have a practical understanding of modern architectural patterns such as Hexagonal, Microservices, Event Sourcing and CQRS. We believe architecture needs to evolve as the product evolves. We appreciate the value of fast running tests at different levels to achieve different objectives. For us, Test Driven Development doesn't start and stop at Unit Tests; we have used different levels of testing and understand their pros and cons. Our understanding of architecture and development process grows as our experience grows. Our interest in technologies, frameworks, and cloud platforms allow us to provide the right platform for the target architecture.
Consultancy
Our senior craftspeople are expert consultants. We start developing the associated, hard to master, skills from the beginning by creating many opportunities where our more junior people can practice in safe and supportive environments. Our senior craftspeople are skilled trainers, mentors, facilitators, advisors, experts, and leaders. They help our clients at all levels of the software development effort, ranging from advising on product management to coaching individuals on how to test drive code. Our ability to operate at this wide range helps us provide highly effective consultancy to our clients. We are always training our less senior people, on and off the job, to become the next generation of leaders and advisors. We also understand that not everyone likes to operate in this area and provide opportunities for people to grow in areas that they find more interesting and a natural fit.
Process & UX
Whilst the majority of our people are software developers, we understand that an effective software development team is much more than that. We believe that everyone should have a "T" shape where they have an awareness of a wide breath of skills and expertise in a narrower set. Our UX designers, Business Analysts and Agile Product Managers specialise in product development. They may start more specific such as UX designer, Business Analyst but over time gain expertise in other complimentary skills relating to product development. They are good facilitators and see the value of bringing the whole team together on the journey. Our more senior craftspeople often act as a product owners for our clients, understanding the needs of stakeholders, combined with a deep understanding of Agile Processes. We value concepts such as Design Thinking and Co-creation. We are constantly learning and regularly attend training courses, conferences, and meet-ups to gain a deeper understanding this field.
Interested in joining our teams in London, Manchester or Barcelona?
BENEFITS WE OFFER
Conferences 5 days of conference budget per year, including T&L and tickets, covered by us. We’ll pay for you as well, so no need to use your holiday days.
Training No fixed training budget. So long as the course is relevant for the company and you'll do a lightning talk on the subject, we’re happy to pay for it.
Books Found something interesting to read that doesn’t already live in our office or digital library? We’ll cover book expenses - and ask to read it after you as well!
Internal Community of Experts You’ll be working alongside Craftspeople who share your passion for learning, whether that’s on a client project or contributing to our internal projects.
Transparency All of our finances are available to everyone from day one. Nothing to hide here.
Autonomy Got an idea? Form an Initiative Circle, take ownership, run with it and see it through to delivery.
Holidays & Flexibility We offer 25 holiday days in addition to national holidays. We’re also flexible with how our people manage their time.
Pensions & Income Protection All covered, as standard. Incidentally, many of these came from Initiative Circles in our early days.
Life Cover & Private Medical A ‘Lump Sum’ payment for life cover, and Dental cashback scheme for you and your children.
INTERVIEW PROCESS
Our interview process will help us to understand your breadth and depth of expertise. We all carry different skills and areas of expertise, and encourage people at all stages of their journeys to apply. Depending on your availability, the entire process can take as little as 7 days.
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01. INITIAL CALL
Usually a 30-minute call with our recruitment team where we’ll get to know each other and to see what values we have in common. At this stage, we’re more interested in your mindset and any values or principles that are important to you.
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02. TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
A 45-minute technical/functional conversation with one of our Craftspeople. You will go into more depth regarding your technical skills and interests.This is a great opportunity to ask questions.
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03. PAIR PROGRAMMING
A 2-hour pair programming session at our offices (or remote). You’ll bring your own laptop, with your choice of IDE and tooling up to you. We’ll tackle a coding kata together, with more focus on your coding and software design skills. Look at it as a chance to showcase your skills.
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04. FINAL INTERVIEW
Congratulations, you've made it this far! You'll meet your future team, see the offices and finalize the process.