From QA Engineer to Software Engineer: my journey
At the start of the year, I was a Student Quality Assurance Engineer, testing educational games at an educational technology company. Fast forward to now, and I’m navigating the complexities of accounting software as an engineering intern. How did I make this change? Why did I choose this path? And what insights can I share with others considering a similar leap? The starting point During my third year studying computer… Continue reading
It takes a village to raise an intern
Let me tell you about my worst day at FreeAgent. At the start of June, I was eager to get started as the newest workflow intern, the team responsible for user-facing admin features. The first couple of weeks were spent bouncing between inductions and tech issues, but I finally found my feet at the beginning of week 3. Ruby was starting to make sense, my tech was up and running,… Continue reading
Thinking on paper the software engineering way
Starting your first engineering job feels like a race against time. Handle coding, survive testing, run through a slew of inductions and find time somewhere in there to meet your teammates. Organisation tools are everywhere. But with a schedule spread across Google Calendar, Notion, and the odd Slack notification, nailing the daily admin can become a chore in its own right. The purpose of a planner is to break down… Continue reading
How to survive imposter syndrome in your software engineering internship
Hi there! My name is Fiona, and I am an intern at FreeAgent. I got my offer and dodged returning to the monotony of bar work that I endured last summer. However, I was only in my second year of studying Computer Science. How was I chosen from what must have been a sea of applicants? They must have overlooked someone! Had I lucked out? In hindsight, this was a… Continue reading
A view of technical leadership from across the industry
It has been over two years since FreeAgent introduced staff engineers into the IC track. The intention was to align ourselves with the wider industry by renaming the previous Senior II level to Staff. At the time, no changes were made to the expectations for the role. Since then, we have overhauled the expectation framework (for our learnings on how to do this, see Dave's post here), and the folks at LeadDev… Continue reading
Five principles for writing an engineering progression framework
In this article I’ll share five principles that became apparent during the process of updating our progression framework. These may be helpful if you’re thinking about introducing a progression framework or making improvements to an existing framework. It’s not an exhaustive list! Continue reading
How we hire in engineering
Applying for a new job can be daunting, especially when you’re not sure what the recruitment process is. At FreeAgent we try to be as open as possible about how we hire and make sure there are no surprises, so that you can be well prepared. Application ✍ Our application process is simple: just upload your CV and cover letter, and answer a few questions about why you are interested… Continue reading
My experience as an Analytics Intern
I was really excited to begin interning at FreeAgent and after 9 weeks in the Data Analytics team I feel I’ve learnt a lot about working in a team inside a company, and about the culture here. I thought I would write a bit about how it was getting set up, working on my project and communicating my findings to the rest of the company. Onboarding/set-up There were a lot… Continue reading
Fixing my first bug – the experience
As a computer science student, I obviously fixed bugs in code before. However, the first one I had to fix at FreeAgent felt significantly different from the corrections I had to make in my university assignments and other small projects. I think that was because whenever I worked on a project, I either wrote the whole code or the project contained just a few files. That meant I could skim… Continue reading
So you’re going to be an intern
After months of nerves, interviews and one too many LeetCode questions, you’ve done it. You’ve landed an internship, you’re free from the dread of a long, empty summer and your brain is filled with vague notions of what your internship might be like. I’m here to gather up your brain clay and sculpt it into solid ideas of what things will be like. Before we start, it needs to be… Continue reading