The people behind Tink
During autumn 2018, I decided to interview some friends from my work. I wanted to hear more about their daily work life and see what their thoughts were regarding the job — the same job I have. I found it interesting since we all had the same mission ahead, but different roles and tasks, to see how they interpret their typical workday and the thoughts they have.
I asked people from different departments of the company to get a broader view, because we all work with different tasks. Everyone I asked wanted to be part of the interview which was delightful.
Jonatan Klintberg
First up, Jonatan, the Tech lead for iOS, managing the development of our Personal Financial Management app, Tink.
The app went through a complete rewrite during 2018. It was previously written in another language that was difficult to scale and expand, hence a rewrite was necessary.
What was the most difficult task with rewriting the codebase to Swift?
- At the same time as we decided to rewrite the entire iPhone app to Swift, we also rebranded the Company and we wanted to redesign the app to a more modern interface. We had a very tight deadline for this project and needed to finish it in just a couple of months. So a hard challenge was to draw the line about how much we could change in the app and how much we just should try to translate the solution that we had over to Swift.
What was the most rewarding outcome of the rewrite?
- Brining all the knowledge we had from the previous Tink app and adopting that to Apples top modern programming language Swift with a new brand and new pixel perfect design resulted in a really cutting edge iPhone app. That was just amazing to see! We received a lot of great feedback from our users after the release and the app was also nominated to the Swedish design award 2018 and won the peoples vote in the smartphone category.
Could you tell me what you’re most excited about this coming time at Tink?
- We are now expanding the company a lot with very ambitious goals for the upcoming year. We want to almost double the company in terms of employees, we want to bring our service to multiple new markets and have a goal of building the best personal finance service in the world. That makes it very inspiring of being part of Tinks journey to the fintech top. 🚀
Gustav Eén
Now hello Gustav, running the front-end development of our tool, “Console”, where developers and banks can sign up and use our API.
Gustav is part of a team that is building the dashboard where hundreds of developers are using our APIs to digitalise onboarding flows, improve KYC processes, mitigate risks in the lending space or build apps that help people manage their finances. The APIs provide you with access to account, transactional, mortgage and investment data of individuals.
Don’t tell anyone but I learned all the coding I know from a myth, called Da_Kebab. It was 2006 and I stumbled upon a bike forum, where he was in the process of coding a cool swirl effect. He showed the code process. I wrote him and asked if I could help out with some coding. He said yes. The problem was, I knew no code — at all. Fortunately, Da_Kebab offered to teach. A few <div> and </divs> later, I could write almost decent code. I don’t code in my daily job, but I work with some great developers at Tink. Like Gustav, pro ex-snowboarder who changed slopes to scopes.
What are the code languages you’re writing with at Tink?
- As a frontend developer you are spending most of your time with JavaScript and we are using React, a popular user interface library with makes it a breeze building scalable apps.
Could you tell me what you’re most excited about this coming time at Tink?
- I’m really excited about building our new onboarding experience for developers wanting to integrate with Tink. As a developer you are integrating with numerous libraries and services and you are often times met with a pretty poor experience. So building a portal with great content and adding the “Tink” feeling with beautiful design and ease of use is something I look forward to.
What is something you’ve learned at Tink while here?
- I’ve only been here for 2,5 months but I feel like I haven’t learned this much in a long time! Coming from a broader web developer role I have really dived into all the frontend goodies with the latest React techniques and styled-components. Other than tech stuff I really enjoy working close with the design team as a driver for our products with a user centered focus.
Johan Sundström
And hi to you, Johan, who’s doing back-end development for our Personal Financial Management app.
During my time at Tink, I’ve practiced my design skills. I’ve also learnt more about back-end development — something I’ve always wanted to know more about. To be able to build great products, I find that it helps to know as much as possible in all aspects of producing the product to be able to maximize the outcome. And back-end is one key to build a great product. One of our back-end developers is Johan Sundström, a Bollnäs guy born and bred, now a Stockholmare.
Why did you decide to become a back-end developer?
- I believe it’s a creative and stimulating job where you get to tackle different kinds problems every day. For me it’s satisfying to be able to process and present data in a structured way along with building useful features.
What is something, if anything, you’ve learnt more about since you joined Tink?
- I’ve learnt a lot from experienced and skillful colleagues since I started at Tink. Everything from how to collaborate in a larger codebase to writing better tests to best practises in building and maintaining scalable microservices.
Well, that’s it for this time. Maybe more interview are coming with people from outside of Tink as well. I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Find more of my writing in my profile, or visit my portfolio to see some product design. You can always reach me on LinkedIn.
