“What sealed the deal for me was…an engineering team that’s 60% female” — Q&A with Ethel Ng from Farewill
Hello Ethel, please introduce yourself!
Hello! I’m a full stack developer at Farewill. I’ve just joined in the beginning of July and work as part of the wills experience team.
How did you get into software development? And what have you worked on in the past?
I definitely didn’t grow up planning to be a developer — despite being around computers and the “digitally savvy” one from a young age I was totally unaware it was an option open to me. At university I studied Psychology, but after graduating I found out about a bootcamp (Makers) and signed up as I thought it would give me a better shot at a career I was interested in. The course gave me enough real-world skills to get my first job at ustwo after 12 weeks.
It’s only after joining the industry that I’ve realised there’s a huge amount of developers from “non-traditional” backgrounds out here.
From my agency experience I’ve worked on a whole range of projects from in-flight travel, supermarket back offices, e-commerce, healthcare.
What does that mean day-to-day?
There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of the website! As a developer I could be working on anything from prototyping new features, improving our compliance with payment regulation, or building internal tools for our customer operations teams. Being a full stack developer means that I’m involved at all levels from the shiny interface that someone sees to the backend systems that generate the wills or communicate with third-party services.
At Farewill we work in small cross-functional teams, and developers are fairly included in product decisions. We’re able to question things and suggest ideas for how to improve the product or the way we work.
What attracted you to Farewill and why did you decide to join?
I’d been working at an agency for a good amount of time and gotten really good at starting things up from scratch, so my main motivation for my next role was finding a place where I could build up long-term ownership of a product. I wanted to work at a startup that had shipped a product with a live customer base, but one that was early-stage enough that I could still have an impact.
Out of the companies I looked at, I really liked Farewill’s proposition — there’s definitely something fun about telling people you work in the death industry! Jokes aside it’s about making a difference in a field that’s been pretty untouched by technology, and doing it in a way that’s human and respectful. In recent years I’ve started being more critical of the role that technology plays in society, and I wanted to be part of a company that uses tech to equalise access rather than catering to privileged groups.
What sealed the deal for me was the diversity of the team. I’m lucky enough that this hasn’t been an issue for me in my career so far, but I know I can’t do my best work in an environment where I don’t feel included. An engineering team that’s 60% female is unheard of.
What makes this company different from others you’ve worked for?
It’s early days but there are some differences to agency life that I appreciate. Aside from having OKRs per quarter there is a longer-term vision which makes it clear what we’re striving towards. Technical decisions have to be more considered as ultimately we’re the ones who will maintain them. Bugs also come with a greater personal frustration knowing that they’re affecting customers out in the wild.
What would you tell someone thinking of applying to a role at Farewill?
We’re still a small team and there’s lots of room for you to find your niche, so I’d recommend it!
