We are Loyalty Team. We develop modules for Home Credit loyalty programs
Team Leader Ondra Horák talks about his job, a team of ten, collaboration across teams, training, and how exactly they operate and work.
Ondra, could you shortly present what your team does?
Based on the clients’ demand, we write software in Java. At the same time, we test and implement everything… we communicate directly with our clients so we also present all the steps and get feedback that we then process.
What’s interesting about it is that we don’t write individual apps but we create a module that communicates with other modules of a product — among ourselves, we say that we work on credit cards.
Two types of clients use our module. Home Credit employees set the loyalty program conditions in the system. And then Home Credit clients that get regular emails with account statements and overview of payments so they know what happens when.
Does it mean you work with other teams at EmbedIT?
Exactly. Imagine, there’s like five to six modules in that sturdy product and those modules deal with the topic of credit cards. Usually, one team deals with one module. And it’s important to communicate among ourselves to know what we do.
Could you illustrate it with an example?
One team takes care of a module that deals with transactions. They get information from VISA or MasterCard and process it so other systems understand it as well. And our team is one of the systems that get their output — and we respond to it again.
The outcome of our work is also the fact that our clients get messages or notifications according to their settings in the system.
How would you describe your technology stack?
Mostly, it’s Java. It’s the language that we write in and most importantly — JVM is a tool that operates it all. We also use WebLogic but we try to run away from it as we consider it difficult. We try to keep it simple and run away from Rabbit and Kubernetes cluster.
As for libraries, that’s Spring, Hibernate, there’s React, Redux and Angular v1 for the interface. Our clients communicate mainly via the web interface so we don’t develop mobile apps.
We try to rotate people in teams. When someone’s been working on a module for a long time — to learn something new. In order not to make small groups. If I get on well with one person, I no longer want to work with anyone else. That’s stupid. We try to push it and learn from each other.
Your team consists of ten people. What roles are there in the team?
I started out as a Java Developer but now I’m a Team Leader. Then we have five other developers. Besides, we have Vendy — the analyst — who, at the same time, communicates closely with clients in the countries. She represents what we’ve developed and also collects requirements for further assignments. We don’t have a product manager — this role rotates among us.
We run two-week cycles, we deliver something every two weeks. But we don’t call it sprints. We just plan work to make it happen. If I had to name it, we’re like Kanban. We also have weekly meetings where we try to go through what we’re working on at the moment.
How do you organize your work?
There is a demand and it’s up to us to process the assignment and create a project plan. How long it will take. Then we send it for approval and it either passes or not. After that, we start to work on it. We divide the tasks according to the available capacities and what team members can do them. And we plan if we can do it right now or after two weeks.
The way of working depends on the fact that the team is in two cities — the core of the team is situated in Prague, two people are in Brno. And it works great.
And what about team training?
We work in Kubernetes in an organized way. It’s the technology we want to have so one person or even more people do it. Then the unorganized part of the training is that everyone looks for books s/he wants and reads what s/he wants. Apart from technology, there are courses aimed at presentation, communication, negotiation. Everyone can choose what s/he likes.
Throughout a year, one can plan and ask for whatever. We go to a lot of conferences abroad. We try to introduce lightning talk — if we read something interesting or come across a good article, I try to share it in a group chat or during stand-up.
We did a very nice thing. We sat down and gave our feedback. I couldn’t imagine something like this in my previous job but it went well here. This also proves that these people get on well with each other and can say even negative things.
What do you consider your team’s greatest achievement in the last year?
I can’t think of any great successes. But we’re praised for being proactive. For example, we had a task of cross-functional teams participating in deployment. So we found out what it means and what consequences it would have for us to try it out.
We strive to be consistent and deliver as we should. I think that, as a team, we are doing well, we clicked, we have the right mix of people from juniors to seniors… people who understand responsibility and function naturally. It benefits us that we have one female colleague — that we have a female element, too.
We don’t go out for billiards or things like that. Sometimes we go for a beer. We have team buildings every three months. That’s fun but otherwise, we’re more of family guys. Rather than going out to a pub, we go home to our families.
I have the last question. Can you describe your team in four words?
- Well-oiled machine :)
- Team — it comes out of what we’ve said. We don’t go for lunch individually. We go together — if it’s possible. I feel that we’re a team and we stick together. There’s a chance to have fun with everyone, even if we don’t go to a pub together. I feel like this is because we have kids and we live in different parts of Prague, otherwise we would go.
- Then professionalism and responsibility, we discussed that, too. It’s not 100%, but we’re not slacks. We try to be proactive and keep an eye on things. This is related to professionalism, we try to be professional and don’t do a sloppy job.
- Proactivity. I still think it’s our strength. We don’t have to be taken by the hand.
