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
A brief introduction to âthe cloudâ and managing infrastructure with code
Over the last decade the âcloudâ has become increasingly prevalent . A cloud based system allows a company to flexibly buy servers, storage, networking and various other services that are hosted externally rather than on-site, typically with a programmatic interface to allow large-scale use. According to a 2019 report, 94% of companies were utilising the cloud in one way or another. The market for cloud providers was valued at $200… Continue reading
What is a tech spec and why do I need one?
For the past three months, Iâve been a Software Engineering Intern in the Connections & Add-ons team here at FreeAgent. We look after a number of features that allow FreeAgent to work with third-party services: if a business owner wants to get paid faster, they can add a PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless or Tyl payment link to their invoices; if they need to get their business insured, they can sign up… Continue reading
We're hiring! Check out our vacancies đ
The 4 SQL queries you need to debug Redshift performance
This blog provides four useful SQL snippets you can use to debug poor Redshift performance. Continue reading
So you’re going to be an intern
After months of nerves, interviews and one too many LeetCode questions, youâve done it. Youâve landed an internship, youâre free from the dread of a long, empty summer and your brain is filled with vague notions of what your internship might be like. Iâm 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
CSS Day conference, June 2022
In early June 2022, Laurence and Ryan from our Design System team visited Amsterdam for CSS Day. Here, they reflect on an inspiring two days of learning and community. Continue reading
Engineering lessons from my SaaS startup
Iâm now almost two months into my software engineering summer internship at FreeAgent. When I was 18, I chose to delay the start of my university course for 18 months to have a go at building a âSoftware as a Serviceâ (or âSaaSâ) startup with two others. Our software, âtrackioâ, was a bring-your-own data platform that allowed sales teams to collect, connect and reconcile their disjointed data sources. It was… Continue reading
How to boost your confidence as a beginner software engineer
Every engineer has questioned at least once in their life whether they are skilled enough for their chosen field. I experienced these doubts when I started my computer science degree at university, and despite the fact that I got through the first three years successfully, I still wasnât fully confident in my abilities when I started my internship at FreeAgent. However, this is entirely normal. Every engineer faces challenges on… Continue reading
An introduction to object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming, or OOP, is a programming paradigm centred around the concept of objects. This article will aim to provide a basic understanding of objects, classes, OOP principles and various other concepts within the paradigm. Code examples will be mediated in the Ruby programming language, which is an example of an object-oriented language. In Ruby, any value is an object, even data types like String and Integer, which are often… Continue reading
What a data science degree doesnât teach you
When I enrolled on my data science masterâs degree I had limited statistical and coding knowledge. This course was designed to teach these skills from the bottom up. Having now worked as a software engineering intern, I have come to realise a lot of things were missed. Moving beyond âif it works⊠it works!â Learning to code can seem very daunting. There are so many resources and even languages. Where… Continue reading