Spotlight on: Accurx’s Tech Leads
With an exciting new Tech Lead role now live at Accurx, I caught up with some of the brill Tech Leads already on our team to ask them all about their roles. Here, Tech Leads Charlie Kendall and Harry Frankish give their insights into this crucial position, which helps Accurx on our mission to make patients healthier and healthcare staff happier.
Charlie
Can you give a quick intro to your role?
I’m the Tech Lead for the GP Messaging team!
I think of the Tech Lead role a bit like the frame that holds the wheels on a bike together. The wheels would still roll down a hill well on their own, but a frame ensures they’re rolling in the same direction and not bumping into too many things on the way. 😂
As a Tech Lead, you’ve got to make sure you’ve always got your finger on the pulse when it comes to the other engineers on your team. This means striking a healthy balance of checking in with them when they need support while allowing them to work through problems and research for themselves.
When it comes to larger or higher-level pieces of work, it’s also key to ensure there’s strong team cohesion and make sure everybody is contributing to and building the bigger picture together. This enables upskilling and opens the way for everybody to challenge suggestions and learn over time.
What’s a typical day like for you as a Tech Lead?
I cycle to work, make some breakfast — followed by my best attempt at a flat white! The morning will then consist of our daily team stand-up and a mix of code reviewing, pairing, or cracking out some of my own code. As 12:30 hits, we head down as a team to grab some amazing lunch à la Leo (and the kitchen gang).
The afternoon can then involve anything from team planning meetings to retros, or potentially some focus time to think about how to architect a new feature we’re planning on building!
I spend the vast majority of my time within the team itself. I have regular catch-ups with other Tech Leads in the clan and participate in cross-team code reviews when necessary.
How long have you been at Accurx? What did you do beforehand?
I’ve been here for just under a year now. I was previously a Senior Engineer at a much smaller company that specialised in open source intelligence (OSINT) who are based in Cambridge! I found my previous role incredibly stimulating and interesting, but it would be remiss of me not to say that I’ve found coming to Accurx to be a really exciting change of pace! I love spending time with the team in-person, and thoroughly enjoy the amount of autonomy each team has with regards to process.
What are some of the big moments, achievements or milestones you’ve enjoyed in your role so far?
I love working on software that is not only used weekly by hundreds of thousands of people, but also brings SO much value to them! It’s so great to make something that is helping improve the lives of so many people.
The biggest milestone to date is rolling out our compose screen UI refresh nationally. It’s well and truly core to the day-to-day lives of so many people, so getting it right was always going to be critical to the success of the project. And — modesty aside — we smashed it! 😀
I also love seeing others grow and having fun along the way. It’s always really rewarding to see people learning while also being productive and making something awesome!
What’s the main thing you’re working on at the moment?
We’re so close to starting the piloting of a ridiculously exciting new feature — the Florey builder (which will allow users to create their own custom questionnaires). 🎉 This is something that users have been requesting for years, so it’s certainly keenly awaited!
What’s the biggest challenge of being a Tech Lead at Accurx?
Sometimes your time can be in high demand, so you’ve got to be good at prioritising!
What do you like doing outside work?
I’m pretty easy to please — I will never say no to a board game, café or a pub trip!
What would you say to someone who’s thinking of joining Accurx as a Tech Lead?
Just do it, apply right now! It’s a fantastic opportunity to keep growing and using your technical skill-set to build software that helps millions of people while also guiding and leading a team. It’s not easy, but so much fun that it’s definitely worth the occasional stress and hard work!
Harry
Can you give a quick intro to your role?
As a Tech Lead, I partner with my team’s Product Manager to set the product direction and manage team health. The Tech Lead is responsible for managing all the technical aspects of product development within the team. This includes leading architectural discussions, breaking down features into iterations and tasks, prioritising tasks and goals, as well as mentoring and pairing with other engineers.
I’m one of the seven Tech Leads at Accurx right now. Though we’re all based in different teams, we all have a fortnightly catch up to talk about everything from what’s for lunch to how we manage tech debt in our team.
Talk me through a typical day for you at Accurx
I usually start each day by checking the health of the system and see whether we have had any problems overnight. The team kicks off each day with a standup — is anything blocked I can help with? Are there any pull requests to review? Does everyone have something to work on today? I often have catch ups with the Product Managers — are we on track to hit our goals? What are we thinking about for our next big goals and team priorities?
I might do some pair programming with another engineer or work on a task myself. Then at 12:30 lunch rolls around. It’s very social here at Accurx — everyone in the office eats together. It’s a great way to catch up with colleagues on other teams.
In the afternoon we might have one of our regular team meetings — Team Review. Here we’ll discuss the latest designs, hear what users have been saying in our research calls, and demo our progress.
How long have you been at Accurx? What did you do before?
I’ve been at Accurx for 15 months. Previously I was a Senior Full-stack Engineer. Teams have a lot more autonomy at Accurx and we’re much closer to users than at my previous company. I find that makes me far more engaged with the work.
What are some of the big moments, achievements or milestones you’ve enjoyed in your role so far?
Earlier this year, we released an experimental feature that allowed secondary care health professionals to reply to GPs through our web product instead of via email. This allowed us to show clear patient information and whatsapp-like delivery receipts. It was really exciting watching the product analytics dashboard with the whole team as the first users came in.
I really like that I get to be involved in product and design decisions as well as build it! 😃
What’s the main thing you’re working on at the moment?
We’re working on clinician to clinician messaging. Our aim is that all healthcare professionals can contact each other about a patient. We’ve got a long way ahead of us but we believe we can provide many advantages over snail mail and email. Over 40,000 messages were sent on our platform last week.
What’s the biggest challenge of being a Tech Lead at Accurx?
The role can be a continual balancing act. New features vs tech debt, good vs good enough for now, meeting deadlines vs giving engineers time for personal development, user requests vs strategy goals, experimenting vs minimising clinical risk. That requires lots of judgement calls!
What do you like doing outside work?
Playing guitar, going to the pub, playing computer games, seeing friends and family.
What would you say to someone who’s thinking of joining Accurx as a Tech Lead?
It’s a great opportunity to have influence beyond just the code!
