Women in Tech @ ASOS: A day in the life of… Rasveer B (Associate Software Engineer)

If you’re anything like me, I love hearing about people’s career stories — not out of nosiness (OK, maybe a bit!), but more out of curiosity and interest.

This ‘Day in the life of’ series gives you a peek into what a typical day looks like for our women in tech at ASOS (there isn’t one!) and how they started their careers. Hopefully you’ll take something inspirational away from it!

This one’s about Ras who is an Associate Software Engineer.

My alarm clock goes off…

… at 7.30am. I’ll normally chill and have breakfast before walking into work.

My commute to work…

Everywhere I go, I have Spotify playing; I’m enjoying the Proper Dose album.

I’m responsible for…

I’m a Software Engineer in the Content team mostly working on front-end code. My role involves developing code for the tasks I’ve been given. At the moment, I’m developing the customer care help pages and moving them into React.

I’ve also been involved in the ASOS Academy site, which is an internal site ASOSers can go to for learning and development resources. Through this, I’ve been able to learn about software quality assurance too, which is all about making sure what’s been developed meets our standards.

Outside of my team, I’m part of the Women in Tech community. I’ve been working with others to create and deliver presentations for schools to inspire younger girls to get into technology. I went to Barnsley College a few weeks ago. I’ve also been supporting with the bootcamps we do for new graduates when they join. It introduces them to ASOS ways of working for code reviews and using HTML and CSS as languages. My manager has also been great at giving me time to develop myself.

I got the job…

While I was doing my master’s degree in Computer Science, I applied thinking I wasn’t going to get the job. At the assessment centre interview, I remember the interviewers asking me a question and I said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s this.’ They replied, ‘Not quite the right answer’. I think they liked me because I admitted I didn’t know the answer. So the next morning, I got a phone call to say I got the job! It was quite a rollercoaster of emotions.

I was still finishing my master’s dissertation when I started the role. I had the graduate bootcamp in the day and would come home and finish off my dissertation. It was stressful at the time, but I made it and I’m still here.

My typical day looks like…

In the morning, I’ll catch-up with my team and get on with work from the day before.

We have stand-ups at 10am where we talk about what tasks each team member is doing. If anyone is stuck on something, we share hints and tips.

We just released a competition called ASOS Scout where anyone can apply to model for ASOS. A lot of my tasks have been working on the front-end code for that recently.

My days are very varied and depend on what tasks I pick up, but normally it will involve coding (usually, Java Script, CSS and HTML). It will then go to the Quality Assurance team to test it and, when it’s ready, through the release process and onto the site.

Our team is big on making sure we take a break at lunchtime. One of my best friends is from the graduate scheme so we’ll go somewhere on the high street for lunch.

If I’ve finished my task for the morning, I’ll start a new task in the afternoon — I like getting them finished within the day or before the next stand-up.

We also do a lot of socials like pub lunches, Laser Quest, go-karting, bowling and ice-skating. It’s not just constant coding, we get on really well as a team, which is fun.

Tell us what you get up to in the evenings…

I do ballet once a week on a Monday and go to a lot of gigs in my spare time — I’m trying to get away from watching Netflix when I get home. I recently got my mum’s old projector and fixed it. I bought a denim jacket from an ASOS sample sale and bought patches to sew onto it. I’ve also got a pile of books that I’ve been meaning to get through.

My most memorable moment at ASOS…

When I won my first ASOS Hackathon competition!

The best part of my job…

Coding. Each day you get a new task and it’s different. The other day, I had to develop a promotional sales banner on the site. I’d done one before, but it was still different from previous ones.

My one piece of advice for aspiring women in tech…

Keep going. I can get frustrated quickly and went to a school where it was believed if you fail, it’s the end of your life. But you should embrace mistakes and don’t say no to anything.

Rasveer B is an Associate Software Engineer at ASOS. She loves vinyl, photography, movies and can always be found at a gig.

Kim Tang is a Cultural Change Advisor at ASOS Tech. Her superpowers include, but are not limited to: making Tech a place we all love to work. Kim loves personality tests, Wes Anderson films, food, taking photos of food and holidays that involve lots of food.