All posts tagged with 'software engineering'
What a data science degree doesn’t teach you
When I enrolled on my data science master’s 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 ‘if it works… it works!’ Learning to code can seem very daunting. There are so many resources and even languages. Where… Continue reading
Software engineering: 5 things they don’t teach you at university
Introduction Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working as an intern software engineer in the Banking Integrations team here at FreeAgent. Before I started, I had just finished the second year of my Computer Science degree at the University of Birmingham. Whilst university taught me a multitude of skills, there are many that can only be truly gained from working in a company. I’d like to share some… Continue reading
Lessons from my first software engineering internship
I started university two years ago with minimal programming knowledge and only a few lessons making Pong in Scratch under my belt. So in the beginning of my Computer Science degree, I spent a lot of time playing catch-up. My experience here at FreeAgent is what has finally caught me up. Unlike in most internships, it was business as usual from day one for me, rather than one big project.… Continue reading
How we publish user events for 100,000 customers
The FreeAgent application is currently used by more than 100,000 companies. When users send their invoices, explain their bank transactions and do any other action to take care of their business, these actions are recorded automatically. We record them in different systems and for different purposes. One of the systems where we record actions like these is an event system and these records are called events. Events contain information about… Continue reading
How I made personal development work for me
Taking regular time out to focus on self-improvement can have concrete benefits for both you and your organisation. These benefits could include becoming more confident in your role, getting that promotion, or helping you become a more collaborative and communicative team member. It surprises me that lots of people I speak to aren’t nearly as excited about personal developments as I am. If you feel guilty about taking time out… Continue reading
How we built the FreeAgent Furlough Calculator in a week
In light of the Coronavirus events, the UK Government put in place a few measures to help businesses during those uncertain times. At FreeAgent, we quickly adapt to help businesses during this crisis. Our goal is to keep you up-to-date with the government support available. HMRC’s Job Retention Scheme Announcement - allowing employers to furlough employees and claim 80% of their wages plus any National Insurance and pension contributions -… Continue reading
How To Write A Good Bug Report
Hi there! My name is Dave and, as a Support Engineer at FreeAgent, I spend a lot of my time talking to our customers, our support agents and our software developers about the behaviour (and occasional misbehaviour) of our product. Fixing a product issue is an incredible opportunity to delight your users and show that, when push comes to shove, you stand by your service and your customers. During my… Continue reading
From Computer Science student to Software Engineering intern
Hi folks, my name's Iain, and I'm one of the few interns you haven't yet heard from this summer. In my last three months on the intern team I've embarked on a whistle stop tour around the FreeAgent application, from user facing emails to developer only APIs. In that time, I've learnt a few softer skills that I never would have had the opportunity to whilst I was at university,… Continue reading
Down the Ruby Mine, Part III: Splat and splat again
Hello and welcome to another Down the Ruby Mine. I’m Sam, one of the Engineering Interns working at FreeAgent over the Summer and I am here to shed some light on a Ruby language feature. If you’re out of the loop, you may have missed my previous posts which can be found here and here. Today we’ll be diving into the most questionably named Ruby feature out there: splat. Functions… Continue reading
Down the Ruby Mine, Part II: Ruby’s seemingly illogical logical operators
Hello there, my name’s Sam and I’m one of the Summer 2019 Engineering Interns at FreeAgent. As part of my time here I’m writing a series of blog posts on Ruby language features. If you’re a first time Down the Ruby Mine reader then don’t fret, because the posts aren’t dependant on each other. However, if you are interested, you can find the first post here. Today we’ll be exploring… Continue reading