It was a special week for Hadean as, on the 13th of September, we observed International Programmer’s Day. This was a chance to celebrate those who have dedicated themselves to the art of interfacing with computers to solve crucial problems and bring new capabilities to every part of our lives. As a deep-tech computing company, we would be nothing without gifted programmers who are willing to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible.
We asked 3 of our talented tech experts, Alexei Barnes (Software Engineer), Luke Vincent (Cloud Software Engineer), and Daniel Pomfjuk (QA Engineer), to talk about life at Hadean and give some advice to those who are thinking of starting their career in programming.
Why or how did you get into programming?
Alexei: I got into programming after watching my dad programming at home, when I was around 6. At the time, he was working on a game and I was super into video games. The idea that you could make your own games was amazing to me!
Luke: Choosing Computing as an A level option, I built a golf booking system and from there my mind was struck by the potential of what can be built. Since then I’ve worked on a number of side projects including a golf website and more recently building a coffee app to help enthusiasts brew better coffee.
What does a typical day look like working at Hadean?
Alexei: Aside from the regular scrum meetings, most days are filled with solid heads down problem solving time. When I’m not working directly on a problem, I also interact a lot with the product teams, lend help to people on slack, and write up designs for larger problems or new features.
How do you handle challenges at Hadean?
Daniel: Communication is the key. If you think you are stuck there’s a very big chance that someone at Hadean has already been in your position. Ask a guild, a squad, a person who you might think have some knowledge in that area and take it from there.
What is it about the work environment at Hadean you like the most?
Luke: Hadean’s work environment is flexible as you can choose to work at home, in the office or a mix of both based on your own preferred pattern of working. I’ve also found it useful that everyone is happy to jump on a quick video call and work on whatever problem you may have. This ties into the culture of collaboration here at Hadean.
Daniel: The fact that everybody is approachable. Yesterday I was on a call with my squad lead trying to resolve a code error and a week before that I was doing the same thing in the office with our CTO. Everyone’s extremely down to earth, which makes you feel comfortable and I love that.
What’s your first advice to anyone who wants to learn programming
Alexei: Don’t fixate on “what’s the best language to learn”. You will learn multiple languages over your career and each one will make you a better programmer in all the languages you learned before that.
Luke: Find examples/tutorials that resonate with you. From there build something you would find useful or have a real passion for.
You’re in a programming jokes competition. What’s your submission?
Alexei: “Let’s be honest; just like my code, if I submitted a joke here I’d have just copy pasted it out of stack overflow.”
Daniel: “Debugging is like being the detective in a crime drama where you are also the murderer.”