Interview with an iOS Engineer — Meet Kent Humphries
N26 is the mobile bank the world loves to use. We wouldn’t be a mobile bank without having our iOS application built by our growing iOS team. I sat down to chat to fellow Aussie, Kent Humphries. Kent is one of our Senior iOS Engineers. Read on for some insights into how our iOS team works.
PK: Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you end up in Berlin and N26?
I am from Melbourne, Australia. Yay! I always liked travelling and particularly living in another city or country to get a fuller experience of its culture. It seems like every time I move away from Australia, I say this is going to be my last adventure. Again and again, I find it’s not.
PK: I can relate to that!
This time, I was living in Slovenia for a while. It’s a complicated country for visas and I was fed up with that. I had two choices. One was to go back to Australia. The other was to go live in Berlin, which is somewhere that has been on my list for a long time. It’s a super cool city.
When I got to Berlin, I was looking around the scene and there were a lot of opportunities. One of my friends is a visual designer in Berlin. He’s a passionate N26 user and said, “You have to apply to N26! Just do it! That’s the company in Berlin, you have to apply for.”
That’s what I did and now I’m here.
PK: You’re part of the iOS team. Tell us a little bit about how the team works and what you work on.
The iOS team is distributed across different functional groups, which we call Product Groups. In previous companies, I was used to one big iOS team sitting together. At N26, we are more focused on vertical Product Groups. I’m part of what we call the Growth Group. We’re in charge of growing the business.
Specifically I am part of the Verification team which is super important. It has huge visibility as it’s a key part of banking regulation. We deal with the Know Your Customer (KYC) process, ensuring that when a customer signs up, they are a real person, haven’t been part of fraudulent activities and we are willing to take them on as a customer while making it a simple and good experience for everyone.
“…it’s very exciting to see Swift everywhere now.”
PK: You’ve worked as an iOS engineer in other places before. What were your first impressions when you first opened the codebase?
The N26 product has been around for a while, so it started in Objective-C. However, it was constantly being modernised and it’s very exciting to see Swift everywhere now. The team decided to move to Swift very early. That really paid off from my point of view. Yes, there is still some Objective-C but the majority is quite fresh, using a modern architecture. I was happy with that.
One particularly well executed part of our codebase is how it’s split into many modules. The modularity is a really strong point that lets us move quickly without stepping on each others’ toes. As a result, feedback loops for code changes are really fast!
PK: What was the onboarding process for you like? There’s a large codebase and lots to learn. How was it for you?
We have a really good set of documentation. This is particularly useful for new joiners. We have very comprehensive documentation explaining how we work, how the codebase fits together, and the different team processes. It’s a really helpful tool because we don’t ask the same questions again and again to the rest of the team.
I also have a buddy. My buddy was my go-to person to ask process and daily work questions. My buddy answered all my ‘stupid’ questions without making me feel stupid. As an experienced engineer, I can dive right in given the right context. I read the handbook, dove right into the codebase and got my hands dirty.
Finally, we have a thorough code review process which is part of the learning process.
PK: You mentioned you worked in places where the iOS team sat together. At N26, the team is distributed into different Product Groups. How does the iOS team synchronise and share knowledge?
It is different and there are being distributed is sometimes challenging. In the past, I felt more like an iOS team member that dipped into different functional groups. Here I feel more like a Verification team member as well as a team member of the iOS team.
Practically we have a handful of iOS specific slack channels that are very active. Even though I don’t sit next to the other iOS engineers, I feel like I am very close to them. Our iOS channels are very positive. We make jokes and it’s a fun place to hang out. They’re private channels too so it doesn’t feel like anyone is watching us. We can be ourselves which is really nice.
Our iOS team holds weekly sync-ups. It’s like a stand-up, where we share updates and challenges we’re facing. Then we do a fortnightly code-share. That’s a bit more like a knowledge sharing session. Maybe you’ve built something cool and you want to share that. Maybe you’re working on an infrastructure topic that affects everyone. We use this forum to communicate important topics to the entire team.
Finally we have iOS days, which are once a month. This is a monthly offsite where we get together face-to-face, to do a deeper dive into a topic like design, accessibility or testing. These topics are part of our daily work but it’s nice to focus on this and ensure everyone is on the same page.
PK: That sounds like a great team I would enjoy working on!
Yeah (laughing). It definitely is.
PK: What are you really proud of since you joined?
Something I focus on is how the iOS team works together and communicates. Our team lead is a great lead, who’s very good at communication. I noticed that when we got together as a team, we can get very excited about certain topics. We would get quite passionate. I’m one of those people that can be overly passionate.
“It means we move towards having constructive dialogues instead of falling into arguments.”
I spoke to some of our agile coaches to better understand how we can communicate as a team and discuss ideas in a constructive way. That’s something I’ve been working on as part of the iOS days. I’ve run a session at the start of the day that gets us into a positive communication mode. It means we move towards having constructive dialogues instead of falling into arguments.
PK: That sounds great! What else has been happening?
One aspect that recently evolved with our Barcelona office means we practice being distributed across locations. It means fast paced face-to-face conversations need to slow down to ensure that remote participants can have their say. It’s forcing us to evolve how we communicate as a team.
“You need to know what you’re signing up for, when you sign up for a company in a scale-up phase.”
PK: This is super important as the team grows and scales. It’s remarkable to see how you’re learning as a team. Given you’ve been here for some time, what advice would you have for a potential engineer or a new starter?
You need to know what you’re signing up for, when you sign up for a company in a scale-up phase. We are no longer a startup where we have only 15 people hacking day and night. It’s the transition from the startup to the big company. You need to be someone who’s okay with change.
It’s guaranteed the way that we work now will be different in six months time. We’re still agile and flexible, to change and grow, and to take on new ideas without getting stuck in our ways. We’re a growing company. There’s a lot of people and you have to be comfortable working in that environment.
If you’re someone who likes strong technical challenges, comfortable working in a larger team, then I think you’ll be happy here.
PK: Great! I have personally not worked with an iOS team of this size and scale, so thank you so much for sharing some insights and your time!
Want to work with Kent in Berlin, Barcelona, New York or Vienna?
If you’d like to join us on the journey of building the mobile bank the world loves to use, have a look at the iOS Engineer roles we’re looking for here.
