Meet Ben, a Senior Data Engineer in our flourishing Data team. He talks us through his career history to date and why he decided notonthehighstreet would be his next venture!
Can you talk me through what you do here at notonthehighstreet?
I’m a Senior Data Engineer here in our Data team. I’m a Software Engineer who builds and integrates data from various resources. The main focus of my job is all around setting the tone for where the data architecture is going to go with the new data platform. I also help out with the daily running of the team, supporting and steering them in the right direction.
Can you talk me through a typical working day, what does it look like?
A lot of my day is usually spent working on code. I’ll also spend a lot of time catching up with admin; taking those responsibilities away from the more junior members of the team. As a senior, I’m very much in support of the team too so if someone needs to get some help with something, they’ll come to me and I’ll triage it out. In general, my day is very varied. It’s spent talking to people, looking at different teams’ strategies, evangelising how data should be used going forwards and then coding it.
Where were you working before getting the job here?
I’ve worked at a lot of places! My last place was a company called 7digital who are a music streaming company. They were a B2B business who would build out the API’s (application programming interfaces) for various organisations. We worked with companies like Samsung, building the back-end for their music streaming services. They had all the music in the world, and the rights to tracks etc, so it was a pretty awesome place to work in terms of data and data management. I came onboard to build both the team but also the data engineering function there too so it was an exciting opportunity. We also supported and did the back-end for the karaoke app, Musical.ly which has around 200 million users globally so was super exciting to work on. Before that I was at Just Eat, building out their data infrastructure, and prior to that I spent time at the BBC and Sony Music for a while, essentially working on their back-end data systems. I have also worked for an Oscar-winning visual effects company called Double Negative where I worked on Inception, the Batman films and the last Harry Potter films too. That was really cool!
Have you always been in Data?
No — I’d say it was only towards the middle of my career where the opportunity to pursue a career in Data really opened up for me. I was always quite interested in it — I liked knowing that you’ve got all of this data to work with and working out how to make it work and make it work faster. When I was at Sony Music, they just didn’t have anyone to do it so they asked if I’d like to give it a go, and I went for it. This was about 5 years ago now and really it’s just gone from there!
Why did you come and join notonthehighstreet?
I think it comes down to: why should anyone join the data team at notonthehighstreet? Before I joined, there was a real need for a new data system and a new way of looking at things. The old system was not fit for purpose, so I had the opportunity to come in and build it all from the ground up, as well as providing direction to a great team. It was also good to know that the business was behind the strategy too — investing people and resources into building up the data function. Notonthehighstreet recognises the importance of data and what it can do, and this is reason alone for me to be working here. It was a great opportunity to make a difference and start from scratch. Everything’s malleable at the moment and nothing is set in stone.
What exciting projects are you currently working on?
I work with lots of different teams in the business which is great because it means what I work on can really vary. We’re currently rebuilding our entire data platform and a whole new data science platform which is really exciting and we’re hoping it will be pretty cutting edge too. We’re building a chatbot, advanced analytics, using machine learning, just to name a few. We’ve been given so much freedom to do it all from scratch.
What’s it like to be part of the Data team here?
We get together every day, during a stand up we have at 10am. Here we talk about what we did the previous day and what we’ve managed to achieve. We also have regular 1:1’s to make sure things are on track and have frequent career conversations to discuss how people want to move forward and develop. It’s important to do this regularly to ensure people are involved in the bits that they want to be.
Every 2 weeks, we have a sprint planning session where we discuss what needs to be done and work out as a team what value each person can bring and what they should be working on. Everything is done very much collaboratively and we like to work things out all together.
What’s your favourite thing about working here?
Everyone says the people, and that is true — everyone here is genuinely and sincerely great to work with and easy to get on with. For me though, I’d say the best thing is the opportunities for the data team. It’s what I get up for everyday. The stuff we’re working on, the people we’re working with, the opportunities to come — it’s all good. I know for the next year or two, we have projects that are going to have a real impact, and be interesting to work on, so it makes it a really exciting place to work.
What do you like about working in Richmond?
Richmond’s just so nice. I was working in Old Street before, and before that had been working in Soho and Shoreditch. It’s green and quieter than all those places — you can see why its been voted one of the best boroughs to live in. There’s really nice boutique shops everywhere too, which I personally really like.
What are you looking forward to over the next 12 months?
Just keeping it going. I’m looking forward to growing the team, as we have positions open at the moment (come and join us?), and also seeing the impact that we have on the business. At the moment, we’re building all of these tools/platforms but seeing how this actually impacts the business in a meaningful way will be really interesting to be part of.
