What is your role at Hadean? What does an average week look like for you?
I fulfill a fairly unique role here at Hadean. I am currently in charge of producing all marketing assets required by Hadean.
What I love about this role is the chance to work with other departments to produce whatever is required for the company to help sell a concept in a visual manner. Rather than just being a graphic designer I have the skills to produce a demo in Unreal, videos for Sales, 3D concepts or anything brand related. So the week is always exciting and generally a mystery on Mondays but by Friday I may have produced something that could help to sell a new solution or help logistics set up a booth at an event the company will attend.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
A diverse palette of creative concepts that need to be managed and produced from draft through to completion.
One project I could be working on a demo concept in Unreal and the next might be an event for the Defence industry. Hadean works across many sectors of many industries and it’s my job to create marketing material specifically tailored to each industry sector whilst retaining the signature Hadean branding.
We also have a growing range of products that require regularly updated material to help us communicate to customers how our products best solve the problems their companies are facing.
Has the Pandemic had a negative impact on your job ?
For the past, nearly six years now, I’ve worked as a remote worker. I was rather fed up with constantly moving around from job to job city to city in the games industry and when I moved to Germany I felt I had found my home and no longer wanted to keep moving so I decided to try working remotely. I actually found I loved it. Technology has reached the point where we don’t need to commute to the office everyday and create unnecessary pollution now the internet and the cloud exist.
Hadean, thankfully, supports remote working for many roles across the company which I am extremely grateful for.
So to answer the question I love remote work and therefore haven’t been affected by the pandemic, it’s business as usual. I’ve also appreciated the support I received in getting the correct equipment bought for me to enable me to do my job to the best of my ability.
How would you describe Hadean’s culture?
Like a family. Unlike any other jobs I’ve had, as I’ve already mentioned, life at Hadean has been exciting and motivating.
A rich tapestry of highly intelligent individuals with a plethora of knowledge, in so many areas of the business are always great to talk to at social events, which the company tries hard to involve us all in. Even during the Covid pandemic Hadean didn’t cancel events; they made them fun and inventive even when we were all in a lockdown and in our homes.
What top three skills or traits do you think someone needs to pursue a role in Marketing at hadean?
- Speed is priority. When the company needs something done it needs to be done quickly and effectively.
- A range of skills. Some might say be a jack of all trades and a master of none is a bad thing but at Hadean we need to move in many directions and have the skills available to fulfil any brief that lands on my desk
- A thick skin. Obviously not everything is instantly accepted as the “final solution” – not every concept makes it into the public domain. You cannot feel like this is a failure, but rather learn and move on from the experience. An often cited quote within Hadean is, “it’s okay to fail, but fail forward.”
What are some of the most exciting challenges you face day-to-day and how do you overcome them?
The work is never monotonous, there are so many new challenges here at Hadean that work life is never boring and you are respected for working through a problem and coming up with the answer.
I myself have had the opportunity to work in three departments, at Hadean, in the three years I’ve been here. I would have never had that opportunity at other companies I’ve worked at in the past. I was in Marketing then the Research Department, a Product Manager and then finally back to Marketing. Hadean allows you to identify your “genius zone” and I am very thankful that People Operations helps you to grow and improve as the company grows. It’s a unique experience for me.
What would you say is the most fulfilling part of your role at Hadean?
I have a supportive network of colleagues around me that treat me as their equal.
I am an individual who gets bored rather quickly and enjoys bouncing around between many different pieces of software. At Hadean I have all the tools and support I need to try different things in order to best complete my work.
The higher level management provides assurance, enabling you to discover new opportunities and skills that you may not have even known you had – ultimately guiding you towards an individual “genius zone”.
How long have you been at Hadean and what other Jobs have you done?
Again, slightly unique in this area.
Basically I was brought into Hadean around three years ago to help them create a marketing presence in the Games Industry. As a deep tech company they didn’t have the ability to produce the right visual concepts needed to communicate directly to the games industry. With ten years prior experience I set to work helping to create visuals and demos aimed solely at the games sector. Now three years later I work for a company that has partnered with some of the games industries biggest names for example Epic, CCP and Minecraft.
So after we’d hit record numbers of players ingame with EVE Online we decided to create the Innovation Hub, to help us explore other industries Hadean Simulate could scale, outside of gaming.
After a while in the research department I was asked if I wanted to join Product which was a totally new avenue of my career to explore and I’m glad I did. It gave me a great insight into the functionality of our product and allowed me to be involved in fulfilling the requirements of our customers for future interactions of Hadean Simulate. I worked as a product Manager/Owner for a year until Marketing required my visual storytelling skills again. So in a big arc I was back where I started three years ago but by this time marketing had become a fully functioning department. Hadean had grown significantly and the startup I joined had now moved into the next phase. I had witnessed the company grow exponentially around me and it felt very motivating to have been a part of the growth.
It’s been an incredible journey with Hadean to see things grow from a small demo we all worked on three years ago to where we are today. I am so glad to have been able to be a part of that adventure and I look forward to witnessing the next steps our company takes.