A Shipping Tool Built On Blood, Sweat… And Cake?
Behind every great web platform lies a team of dedicated, talented, multi-disciplined worker bees. And the same rings true for the myTNT 2 hive. A swarming cloud of developers, designers and engineers masterfully run this shipping tool – led, of course, by the Queen Bee of myTNT 2 Shipments, Martje van der Linde.
How do these buzzin’ bees keep myTNT 2 ticking along? And how does cake factor into all of this? We chatted with Martje and a few others to find out.
But first, a brief rundown of myTNT — it’s an online tool for customers to book shipments, and before myTNT 2 there was myTNT 1. Consider myTNT 2 the smarter, slicker, friendlier cousin of myTNT 1.
For the past three years, the team have been hard at work developing the new myTNT 2 platform — designing and building a faster, simpler, easy-to-use shipping experience. Last year they kicked off the migration of customers from myTNT 1 to myTNT 2, and boy has it been a helluva ride with Martje admitting the team faced major technical challenges during the first few months.
‘Bringing customers onto our new platform proved to be a reality check in many different ways. We learned important things about our IT landscape, but it wasn’t always easy.'
So the team spruced up the backend till it sparkled and could handle a huge influx of new users. Now, the well-oiled, lean, mean myTNT 2 fighting machine is ready to migrate a hefty number of customers to the brand new, stable and secure shipping platform.
A little further down the road, the team are hoping to take Australia, UK, Germany, Italy and France by storm. And in the meantime, the worker bees are busy tinkering away at snazzy new features. Because creating a smooth, user-friendly experience is something the team continuously strive for, and Martje believes it's the most important part.
‘So there’s the migration of customers to the new platform and the onboarding of new countries. And the third continuous stream is improving the experience for our users by adding features that actually mean something to them. Improving efficiency and ease-of-use is something I believe we can make a huge difference in.’
Indeed Lennart, the design champion of Martje's team, says myTNT 2 isn’t just competing with other shipping tools, they’re up against pretty much… well, everything.
‘Even though we’re a B2B tool, those customers are also on the couch at night watching Netflix and their digital experiences are based on the products they encounter. So you really need to focus on high-quality products — you can never assume, you have to constantly research.’
The team have high standards and work bloody hard. From developing the new commercial invoice feature to fixing a small snag in the backend — it’s all hands on deck. What spurs them on? Well, for Frontend Developer Mies, it’s the end product.
‘It’s so nice to bring a design to life and click through an application once it’s finished.’
For Martje, the joy lies in building a functional tool and supporting people in their day-to-day jobs.
‘I like that it’s a very functional tool and working in the logistics business makes me feel connected to the rest of the world because it’s so international. You feel like you’re creating real value for customers.’
So this team are certainly driven, but aside from bringing the honey to the hive, how do they all work together? Whilst eating a lot of cake apparently, says Mies.
‘We’re always baking cakes for each other on our birthdays, which is nice. Martje is really good at making that happen.’
Senior Coding Engineer Eddy loves the chilled vibe and eclectic mix of people.
‘The environment is great. There’s a lot of young, international people.’
And another shout-out to cake from Martje.
‘We make sure you get a cake on your birthday, and we eat cake whenever we're celebrating a team achievement. So yes, we eat quite a lot of cake. The team vibe is brilliant and I’m really proud of that, I truly think it’s the biggest achievement (as well as building an awesome tool) and work is just better when you’re having fun.'
So there you have it, the myTNT 2 team are fueled by enthusiasm, hard work and lots, and lots of cake.
Got a sweet tooth and passion for user-experience? Take a look at our job opportunities and see if anything tickles your fancy.
