Exciting Growth and a World of Innovation: Inside Life on Our Tech Team (Part 1)
Wednesday, 6th April 2022
One of the most exciting things about Infogrid is our rapid growth trajectory. We’re getting bigger all the time and for our tech team, it’s an inspiring opportunity to flex their skills and take on some very interesting challenges.
From migrating our codebase, and scaling our infrastructure to working cross-functionally to solve customer-centric problems, working here is high-energy, but it’s a pace that’s set by the team. We trust them to deliver without looking over their shoulders because our Infogrid ethos of ‘Grown Up Rules’ is very real for us and we know we’ve all got the business and our customer’s best interests at heart.
In this three-part series, we’ll hear from different teams in tech about what life at Infogrid is like.
First up is Software Engineering. Find out more from the team below.
Tuule, Front-End Developer
Back in early 2021, most of Infogrid’s front-end codebase was written in Javascript, which as we all know has been surpassed by TypeScript. Our forward-looking team decided to start migrating over and now, a year later, we have three times more developers! We’ve successfully kept the ball rolling and gone from 0% TypeScript to 60+%.
Being part of a team that all has the same goal, shares the relevant knowledge, and is supportive of each other’s effort has been a great learning opportunity - not to mention it’s done wonders to our codebase! I also love not being the smartest person in the room - we have so many great, smart, and experienced people to learn from. It’s been excellent for my professional development.
In addition, everyone is really nice and kind. I don’t know how Infogrid does it and manages to hire the top talent around. I’ve felt welcome since my first day. You can always just jump into a conversation with anyone, it doesn’t matter who they are.
Nick, Senior Engineering Manager
I’ve been building up two new teams to focus on customer- centric problems, which has been exciting. The teams are a collaboration of engineering, data science, and product, coming together to find practical solutions to specific customer problems, with an emphasis on the whole team being involved through all stages. Seeing such a cross-functional team deliver exciting solutions together is very rewarding. An example is our recent Smart Cleaning solution, which empowers a more efficient utility workforce and reduced carbon emission for the client.
One thing I love about this company is that no matter what level you’re at, you can make a difference. If you have an idea, people will listen whether you’re a day out of uni or a 20 year veteran. This encourages a really innovative environment where people keep suggesting new/better ways to do things. To be nurtured in such a way is priceless.
Inês, Senior Front-End Developer
There are really smart people at Infogrid, who are passionate about the mission and using technology for good, but more than that everyone is just really nice! There is also ample space to suggest improvements and voice opinions about what we can do better as a product team and as a wider technology team.
I’ve not been here for long yet, but I have already learned a lot about how our sensors work, and how we combine data from different types of sensors to create rich visualisations that respond to our users’ needs. The first project I worked on was great - a page that shows our users how efficient their cleaning rotas are, how much time they’ve saved by using our application and how nice it feels to use their facilities. Everyone is great to work with and is generally excellent at what they do, and our work is testament to it.
William, Software Engineering Manager
Throughout the last months of 2021 we planned our strategy to achieve our ambitious scaling targets, and we are now in the implementation phase. We are implementing a new load testing strategy, re-organising critical bits of our application code into infinitely scalable Lambda services and ironing out our bottlenecks. It’s really fun! We aim to push our applications to breaking points and identify which
additional measures are required, all while improving the overall health of our codebases.
Infogrid is all about empowerment of its people. We operate on the grounds of trust and maturity, strongly believing that everyone at Infogrid is acting in the best interests of the company and each other. Additionally, while Infogrid is a remote-first organisation, it sure doesn’t feel like one. We put incredible effort into building and maintaining relationships with our colleagues, with lots of social events and some very creative use of multiple communication lines.