https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ILPFhk0gLI&feature=youtu.be
We sit down with Head of Development, Alistair, to find out what his first six months have been like working from our Edinburgh-based office.
[QS] Hi Alistair! So, when did you start working for QikServe and what are your main responsibilities?
[Alistair] I’ve been working here for six months. I started in November last year (2017). I’m responsible for all operations of the Software Engineering group and the delivery of the products on our roadmap. I’m also responsible for motivating and developing the team and ensuring we have a culture of learning.
[QS] What is a typical day for you?
[Alistair] A typical day for me would be split up amongst ongoing operational work versus strategic work. Usually in the morning I’ll attend team stand-ups, followed by 1:1s with the engineering group and ensuring new starts are settling in well and getting the support that they need.
When not working directly with the teams I’ll be in strategic meetings; looking at the next generation of products and how we’re going to start work on those. I’ll also spend time with Project Management to look at issues coming in from live sites and making sure they are getting fed back in to the sprint cycles.
[QS] What do you find most rewarding about your role?
[Alistair] One thing I’m really passionate about and have introduced here is Scrum as a way of working. I support our teams to work within autonomous squads and encourage our engineers to make important decisions about the products they’re working on so they take ownership, feel engaged and understand the difference they’re making.
Whatever we’re discussing in the engineering team, we’re always making sure we’re embedding DevOps principles into what we’re doing. The way we want to be working is in that continuous delivery model and we’re always striving towards that.
Up next in the QikServe: The People series is a sit-down with Phil, our Customer Support Manager. Watch the interview here.
