In Conversation With Ben Freshwater

We sat down with Ben Freshwater, a Software Engineer in our Consumer Finance team. We had a great chat about their career, their time at Cazoo, and the great work they’ve been doing as the co-lead of our LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group.

Q. Hey Ben, let’s get started. What attracted you to a career in Software Engineering?

A. The craftsmanship, I feel there are so many things you can learn. As technology changes there’s always something new and I don’t want to ever stop learning.

It keeps me on my toes. The world evolves, businesses evolve, why shouldn’t code evolve?

Q. Can you tell me about your career before you joined Cazoo?

A. After finishing my degree, I worked for Marks & Spencer in one of their stores before signing up for their graduate scheme in Software Engineering. I spent a year participating in the scheme, then two years in one of their front end teams.

I decided to join Cazoo to broaden my skill set. At M&S, I was front end focused and my back end experience was light. At Cazoo, engineers are full stack. That was attractive to me.

Q. Why did you want to work in a full stack role?

A. I’ve always wanted to be full stack. The front end is attractive but I feel the work can become repetitive. It’s also only one part of the system. I wanted to own a domain and build an end-to-end experience.

The way teams are structured at Cazoo, they are domain-focused. The team owns a full stack application for that domain. It feels more realistic. It’s like mapping the business into code.

The engineers know what’s going on across all parts of their domain.

Q. How does owning the full domain impact the team?

A. The engineers play a valuable role in the whole lifecycle. We build the system to reflect a process and achieve something that benefits our customers.

This includes getting involved in the project discovery phase. My team gets involved in event storming and user story mapping. We’re more involved in a lot of Agile processes.

We end up being a stakeholder in how the product is going to turn out. It makes you feel more valued. It helps you build better products.

Q. What has been your favourite part of working in the Consumer Finance team?

A. Pair programming has been a highlight, especially with the quality of our senior engineers. I feel completely happy approaching a senior engineer. I know they’ll respect me and speak a language that I understand. It’s been great for my development. We are all very humble and always keen to learn.

Q. What’s your favourite thing about working at Cazoo?

A. It’s the people. Not just the people in engineering, everyone.

You see consistency in quality and character. Everyone is very humble. You appreciate being able to spend time with them. It’s a positive atmosphere.

There’s a focus on wellbeing. We have Mental Health First Aiders. I’ve not seen that at a company before. It’s not only a benefit it also contributes to the culture of openness here.

I can tell someone in my team that I’m having a bad day, or that I need to take a ten-minute breather. You feel very supported. It’s important to have those conversations.

Q. It’s great that you are so passionate about mental wellbeing. Is there anything you do to help the well-being of others in the business?

A. I’m involved in some of the D&I groups outside of engineering. I champion the LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group (ERG).

Being able to connect with LGBTQ+ colleagues made me and others feel a lot more comfortable. It’s allowed me to meet so many people. I was honoured to be voted the co-lead of the group.

We started with about five individuals. Now, we have more than 70 in our Slack channel. It’s good to see there’s allyship and that people are genuinely interested.

It’s evolved into something incredible. I’ve learned so much about being inclusive, and supporting people to be themselves at work. We help to raise awareness of things going on at Cazoo and around the world. We’ve even hosted a few events.

Q. What kind of events has the group organised?

A. We’ve run events with Stonewall. They provided workshops on LGBTQ+ mental health and a boot camp on LGBTQ+ in the workplace.

We’ve done some work with our partners too. Aston Villa’s LGBTQ+ community hosted a quiz for us on LGBTQ+ sporting heroes. We had a good turnout and great prizes!

Q. If you were talking to another Software Engineer who was interested in joining Cazoo, what would be your advice to them?

A. A lot of people get imposter syndrome when starting a new job. I’ve felt it before and it can hold you back.

At Cazoo. I don’t think there’s a reason for anyone to be afraid. Everyone here is humble. Nobody is going to think less of you if you don’t know something.

If you need development somewhere, someone will support you. People care about where you want to go and what you want to learn. They will spend time helping you get to where you want to be.

You just need to be open about where you are in your career. Don’t be afraid to present who you are.

If you would be interested in a career at Cazoo then you can find out more about our current vacancies at: https://www.cazoo.co.uk/careers/