Women in Tech @ ASOS: A day in the life of… Tanda K (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 take something inspirational away from it!
This one’s about Tanda K who is an Associate Software Engineer.
My alarm clock goes off…
I set my alarm for 6:50am to give myself 10 minutes to rest before getting up at 7am.
My commute to work…
On the bus, I’ll listen to podcasts. I love ‘The Receipts’ and ‘The Dollop’. I have breakfast from the canteen (a single hash brown) and then I like to check my emails and browse the ‘New In’ category on ASOS.com. Right now, I really want this pink Collusion top.
I’m responsible for…
I’m an Associate Software Engineer in the Product team. I recently changed teams because I love a challenge. ASOS is the perfect failsafe place. If you want to do something, go ahead.
My team are in charge of the Product Catalogue API. An API is like a set of definitions, a ‘contract’ of communication so when another team wants to know something about a product for example, the API will return them this information. The Product Catalogue API service is responsible for showing products to our customers. As you can imagine this service is heavily used.
I got the job…
I took the traditional route. I studied IT in school. I did poorly but I was determined to be a web developer. I grew up when Myspace was cool and thought ‘I want to do this all day’. I was awarded ‘Most Organised Piczo Website’ from someone online who made amazing layouts. 20 years later we met up and we became friends!
I did an undergraduate Computer Science degree at Queen Mary University of London and a postgrad at King’s College London. After my undergrad, I had that typical feeling that if you didn’t get hired by a bank, you were a failure. Employers kept on asking for experience, but since I had just graduated I had none. So I used Google for experience and came across internChina. I worked for a tech dating app company in China for two months. It was a real, life-changing experience. They work hard!
I then applied for ASOS and got in on the graduate scheme. I rotated around four different teams in one year, including Bag, Stock (shoutout to my mentor who taught me a lot while there), Pixar and Browse.
My typical day…
Our daily stand up is at 10am. The team uses Kanban so there aren’t many meetings. We have mini refinement meetings, which we call ‘3 Amigos’, where we flesh out a user story with a QA and a Developer, before a meeting with the full team. It’s helpful because it’s another place you can ask the dumb questions. Every now and again I have a meeting with my mentor to keep me on track and focused.
My most memorable moment at ASOS…
When I first joined, I was part of the team that did a huge bulk of new product releases onto the site in the early hours of the morning. It was so exciting and it was great to feel trusted enough to be involved in such a big thing. ASOS paid for my Addison Lee to pick me up. When it was over, I got a message from my team saying they were impressed to see I was involved. That was really nice.
The best part of my job…
Is when I check in code and the build doesn’t break in TeamCity.
Tell us what you get up to in the evenings…
Depending on the day, I’m usually either in the local pub, doing a kettlebells class or watching reruns of Bojack Horseman at home. I also enjoy food and fashion photography in my spare time.
My one piece of advice for aspiring women in Tech…
Some days it’s frustrating and you feel like you’re going nowhere, but this quote always picks me back up again: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better’ — Samuel Beckett
Tanda K is an Associate Software Engineer at ASOS. She loves pandas, podcasts, food photography and binge-watching the Netflix classic BoJack Horseman.
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.
