The web application brand refresh journey
At the beginning of this year the Design System team took on the work of updating the FreeAgent brand, focusing on the web applicationās typography, colours and logos (and a few extra bits). You can read more about the new look in Roanās post. I want to take you on a journey of what updating a 10+ year old codebase was like and the challenges it brought with it. The… Continue reading
Five principles for writing an engineering progression framework
In this article Iāll share five principles that became apparent during the process of updating our progression framework. These may be helpful if youāre thinking about introducing a progression framework or making improvements to an existing framework. Itās not an exhaustive list! Continue reading
Generative AI: Programmable Reasoning Machines of the Future
These days Generative AI is being employed for everything from interpretation and summarisation of text to problem solving with a conversational natural language interface. What sort of conceptual model should we have in mind when thinking about LLM systems? Continue reading
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Challenge Accepted: Our Weekly Looker Challenge
We wanted to improve our stakeholdersā Looker skills Here at FreeAgent we use Looker as our business intelligence tool. Itās used by over 150 stakeholders across the organisation, of which over 100 are active on a monthly basis. To unlock Lookerās full potential, weād like those stakeholders to be better equipped to explore the data using Lookerās range of features, rather than simply viewing a chart that somebody else has… Continue reading
Readable Dates in Rails
I was playing around in Swift recently, and wanted a reference to 'one day ago'. This is simple enough in human terms: if it's 9:30 on the 18th of September, 'one day ago' means 9:30 on the 17th of September. The Swift code to do this looks like this: Calendar.current.date( byAdding: .day, value: -1, to: Date.now ) ...and that's just a bit much, isn't it? First we need to access Calendar.current, a singleton… Continue reading
Meet our women in engineering (Part 2)
The second of an occasional series, where we ask some of our women in engineering to share their experiences of working at FreeAgent: What was your career journey like before coming to FreeAgent? My academic background is in the Humanities, but I spent years working in web publishing. This work wasnāt particularly techy, as I was using a CMS to publish content to sites. I was curious about the stuff… Continue reading
Meet our women in engineering
In the first of an occasional series, we asked some of our women in engineering to share their experiences of working at FreeAgent: What was your career journey like before coming to FreeAgent? I'm a career switcher, from children's book publishing to software development. My first tech job in 2015 was a junior-friendly place where I learned TSQL on the job. Then, my second dev job was back in publishing,… Continue reading
The Data Science Internship Chronicles: A Starfleet-worthy Tale of Numeric Exploration
In the vast expanse of the universe, I, a humble data science intern, set out on a mission to improve a classification model. As I delved deeper into the data, I encountered anomalies and outliers that threatened to disrupt my analysis. But with the guidance of my mentors and the help of advanced data tools, I navigated through the stars and uncovered the hidden patterns that led to breakthrough insights.… Continue reading
Mindfulness with GitHub
I was a researcher in chemistry in my previous career, so I have a habit of labelling everything. It is important in chemistry to be organised; you donāt want to mix unknown liquids in unlabeled beakers. Can you guess why? BOOM! I apply this habit in every area of my life. Now, everything has a place and is clearly labelled. I have a place for vertically striped socks and a… Continue reading
How we hire in engineering
Applying for a new job can be daunting, especially when youāre 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 ā Our application process is simple: just upload your CV and cover letter, and answer a few questions about why you are interested… Continue reading