All posts tagged with 'software engineering'
Persisting nested form attribute indexes through Turbo updates
Introduction We recently encountered an interesting problem when using Turbo Streams to update part of a complex nested form in FreeAgent’s main Ruby on Rails web application. For those unfamiliar, nested forms allow a user to enter data relating to both a main parent object and its associated objects. This could be, for example, a contact form which also supports creating and editing multiple associated addresses. To illustrate the problem… Continue reading
Wiggling my way to a win
The work calendar At FreeAgent, we work in intervals of sprints (2 weeks) and cycles (which are made up of 4 sprints – adding up to roughly 2 months total). In a cycle a team typically aims to complete 1 larger project, and during a sprint a team aims to complete sub-tasks of that larger project. This helps construct timelines and structure for product managers and engineers to work within. … Continue reading
Building the bridge from education to real-world application
You’ve just hung up the phone and you’ve received an offer for an internship. The excitement is overwhelming as the countless months of applications, assessment centres, interviews and rejections become obsolete. You’ve done it! This is your first step gaining valuable experience about being a software engineer and bridging the gap from theoretical university to real-world application. You’re faced with excitement and questions. What is it like to work on… Continue reading
Uncharted Waters: a guide to exploring unfamiliar codebases
Some companies' codebases are massive. FreeAgent’s, with its monolith Rails application, certainly is no exception. The first time you clone one of these codebases onto your machine and see the sheer number of folders, files and complexity, your eyes might just widen and your jaw may just drop - letting out a yelp. As you click through the first few random files, noticing that you don’t understand a thing and… Continue reading
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
Blasting away with Jetpack Compose: Android development at FreeAgent
FreeAgent’s talented mobile app engineers work within their own specialised technology stack. Unlike the developers for the desktop version of FreeAgent, we don’t use HTML, JavaScript, or Ruby. Instead, we work with Kotlin for Android development, and Swift for iOS. The FreeAgent mobile app developers work to keep feature parity with the desktop version, whilst juggling unique mobile-specific considerations. These considerations are vital to empowering mobile customers and their businesses.… Continue reading
Breaking the coding doom loop: lessons from my intern project
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You get a project idea that you’re excited about, create a new GitHub repository, and dive headfirst into coding. Instead of coming away with your new pride and joy, you end up with just another repo in your archive. Well, this has happened to me too, too many times! With my university projects, I could always produce a good piece of work. But university… Continue reading
Factories: don’t stop production!
Why this post? Have you ever come across a situation where you need to write a test that uses some model objects, but found that those have endless dependencies on the existence of other objects, from the same model or otherwise? Have you ever come across a test where you only care about a specific attribute of a model object, but you find yourself having to populate every single one… 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
My internship project: from ideation to implementation
When I started my internship at FreeAgent, I had no idea what to expect. I read previous blog posts and saw that interns get up to a wide range of things! I spent my first weeks here doing onboarding tasks and fixing small bugs. Once I’d started to get familiar with the codebase and the way FreeAgent works, it was time to start my project. 😮 My team manages Sudo,… Continue reading