How iTech Has Made Me Better At My Job
My LinkedIn tagline is ‘Recruiters – Don’t Bother’ and I mean it; I am staying at iTech. As Head of Engineering at one of the most epic technology companies around I am blessed with fantastic training opportunities, brainy colleagues and an immensely diverse working environment. What more could a humble software developer want?
I am surrounded by people who are better than me
At iTech, I get to work with a lot of excellent people who are far better than I am at a lot of things. I pay attention to everything my colleagues do; from the way they act in certain situations to the various methods they use when delivering our product. The best way you can learn – with a heavy emphasis on the word ‘best’ - is from other people.
And I hate to break it to you, but there will always be people who are better than you. So, surround yourself with really smart colleagues, assume everything they do has been done on purpose and adopt their skills as your own.
We get kick-ass training
Remember when I said that there will always be people better than you? Sorry to dampen your ego further, but this goes hand in hand with the harsh reality that you will never know everything either. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to soak in as much knowledge as possible using the resources at your disposal.
At iTech, the training opportunities are second to none. Not only do we get a great training budget, on top of that I get to work with the legendary Andy Skipper every week, head of CTO Craft. Working with Andy has helped me to identify common issues met by Chief Technology Officers, transforming me and my team into a well-oiled machine. On top of that, we're currently offering the whole engineering chapter free AWS certification exams and training.
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Some days you just don’t feel up to working at your best. You may have things going on in your life and at home that prevent you from operating as well as you could be. iTech acknowledges this fact - that you have a life outside of work. Additionally, where most work now happens at home, being supported at work means being supported in your personal life, too.
As lockdown restrictions ease, we’ve got plenty of projects coming up that allow Arcs to take advantage of relaxed regulations and enjoy their lives. For example, we've just told everyone to take some time on Monday afternoon to connect with people in real life (whether that be colleagues, or friends and family).
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I’ve always had an aptitude for programming (I began trying (and mostly failing) to write code for games when I was 8 years old) but working at iTech has given me the tools to turn my passion into a career.
I am constantly surrounded by the best, whether in the form of mentoring schemes or my co-workers. In-house technologies have encouraged me to be self-reliant and suddenly I know a bunch of workarounds for everything that doesn't quite work the way you want it to.
So, recruiters, really, don’t bother.
- Matt Squirrell