QikServe sits down with Project Manager and resident Australian Cait over a cuppa to find out what her first months have been like working at the company’s Edinburgh-based office.
[QikServe] Hey Cait! How long have you worked at QikServe?
[Cait] I’ve been with QikServe for four months, since October 2017.
[QS] What are your main responsibilities?
[Cait] As the Project Manager I’m responsible for the lifecycle of all the projects that we run.
[QS] What’s a typical day like for you?
[Cait] I don’t really have a typical day, it depends on what I’m working on. I can typically be found working with other teams – usually Engineering or Implementation, depending on where we are with the project. Together we work to address issues and risks with the end goal of getting stores live.
[QS] Have your first four months been what you expected?
[Cait] Working for similar kinds of companies previously, it has been what I expected; I knew it would be both challenging and exciting. I didn’t expect QikServe to be exactly where it is with regards to how big the clients are that we work with so that’s been fun, and familiar to me too, having worked directly with enterprise-grade clients in my previous job.
[QS] What are the benefits of working for a small company?
[Cait] A major benefit is that there’s not as much red tape as typically found in bigger organisations. You can get everybody together to solve problems and get the solution out the door really quickly. The speed at which we can turn things around and being able to work so closely with others is definitely one of the best parts of my job!
[QS] What other parts of your first four months have you particularly enjoyed?
[Cait] I’ve enjoyed the next generation self-service checkout we’ve been working on which is a completely new solution for us. It’s been a very exciting process and has involved both new payment integrations and hardware integrations. It’s the first major project I’ve worked on and I feel like it touches on a lot of what we do.
[QS] What do you find most rewarding about your job?
[Cait] Probably seeing a solution come together. I’m really excited for next week because we’re about to roll out our self-service checkout solution in store. It’s the moment we all look forward to. Another project I’ve particularly enjoyed working on is the certification process for our new payment integration.
[QS] What is the culture like at QikServe?
[Cait] It’s quite a community! It’s a close-knit team and we all get along really well. We all have interests outside of work too so it’s not just about slogging away and doing the job. We’ve even planned a trip away together to the snow. I’m new to Edinburgh so it’s been really good for me as I’ve been able to grow some friendships as well.
[QS] What strengths does your team have?
[Cait] I don’t particularly have a team because I work with everybody. I say the whole business is my team; it’s all about being part of it. I think our strengths lie in our abilities to solve problems, and also our ability to address the root problem and not just the symptom. Every release cycle we do, we learn more and we find better ways of doing things. Instead of having a rigid, corporate process we’re constantly evolving – which is a great attribute to have in any organisation.
[QS] What are you looking forward to working on next?
[Cait] I’m really looking forward to the next 6-12 months – both growing the team and the solution.
QikServe: The People is a blog series. Meet the rest of our staff here.
