“What’s really inspired me to stay at Audacia is the people”
Principal Software Consultant, Ed Brown, goes into detail about some of the projects he’s worked on over the four years that he’s spent at Audacia and explains why it’s the people that gets him excited for work.
After achieving a masters degree in Computer Science with Games Development, I started a career at Audacia as a Software Consultant.
In the past few months, I've been promoted to the role of Principal Consultant at the company, overseeing a wide range of project delivery activities, from initial analysis workshops to defining work packages and overseeing the development and release cycle. Additionally, this involved maintaining long-term relationships with project clients, an aspect outside of technology that I really love.
I have worked at Audacia for nearly four years and, during that time, have had the opportunity to work across a number of industries including automotive, marine and manufacturing.
What projects have you worked on?
I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a lot of exciting projects across a variety of industries. Some of my favourites are those where we’ve been able to use cutting-edge technology to reach solutions.
When I worked with an automotive company, I was introduced to the benefits of microservices, which I have found to be a powerful tool to enhance digital solutions and improve app architecture. Implementing microservices into this project meant that our application could handle large queues and process significant amounts of data. Having this opportunity to work with technology that I was interested in was really exciting and has since inspired me to deliver my own talk on this subject for the Leeds Digital Festival.
Another thing that I particularly enjoy is hearing clients' positive feedback. Working with a global manufacturing company, the rollout of a new portal system provided significant advantages to the company’s working processes. The portal provided detailed, comparative information about available products and helped users make informed decisions before making any purchases.
This platform has since been integrated across all working procedures at the company. The portal has been launched across loads of sites internationally — from the US to Saudi Arabia — with a global user base.
How would you describe the culture at Audacia?
The people and culture at Audacia are great.
The fact that I can finish a long day at work and still get excited at the possibility of doing things with colleagues speaks volumes! Since starting at Audacia there’s always been a host of activities for employees to get involved with. For me, I’ve always loved the weekly pub quiz at Waterlane Boathouse.
Everybody is really helpful at Audacia too. If you have a problem, there’s usually always someone with the expertise who can help you out. Even if someone can’t immediately help, they’ll still take the time to talk through the issue and will be invested in reaching a solution.
This culture of learning and helping one another is best showcased in our academy programme, which gives people the opportunity to learn about software development and coding practises without any prior experience. I’ve seen the benefits of this programme first-hand as a mentor over the past couple of years — a duty I’ve found to be really rewarding.
How have you been able to progress in your role at Audacia?
At Audacia there are two career paths that developers can take; either as an engineer or as a consultant. For me, I always enjoyed the regular communication with clients; that’s why I expressed an interest in the consultancy route.
Having expressed my interest in this path, I was given the opportunity to sit in more meetings and given advice on how I can begin progressing in my role.
Progressing in your role at Audacia entails taking on more responsibilities outside of your day-to-day tasks. This usually includes increased involvement with the delivery of projects and mentoring junior developers, as well as maintaining strong client relationships throughout.
I also got involved in many important processes like interviews. Participating in interviews helped me shape teams and contribute to the recruitment process, ensuring the skill level while also retaining our really great culture.
My increased involvement gave me an added appreciation for the inner workings of the company and equipped me with the confidence required to lead as a principal consultant.
What advice would you give for someone starting a career in tech?
I would advise anyone to be as clear as possible about the goals that they have in their career. It’s great to show ambition when you’re starting out and it’s even better to be clear about where you want to take your career 6 months to a year in the future.
While you don’t always need to have your aspirations pinned down straight away, you can be sure that your team leaders will be supportive of your path and encourage you to try out new solutions.
Audacia is a leading software development company based in the UK, with headquarters in Leeds. Find out more about what it's like to work here and our current open vacancies on our careers site.
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