Life as a Software Engineer at Missguided
Missguided, where do I start? Do we start with Code School? Extensive engineering knowledge? Tailored career progression? It’s hard to choose with so many good things. Well, I’ll start from the beginning.
I came to Missguided from the Co-op Bank, my knowledge of React was rusty my JavaScript knowledge flaky, but I was welcomed warmly and paired with some very experienced engineers who showed me the ropes and helped ease me into the company dynamic. On the first week I was flying, I had a better understanding of JavaScript, React you name it. The engineers I had been pairing with took time to help me grasp the current work, and I loved it. The projects I was working on were fun, tricky and interesting.
After a few months working with A/B Testing and ‘business as usual’ work, I was asked to join a team developing the new Missguided React web app. Once there I could strive and become much more confident in React, again I was flying within a few weeks. I was writing components, writing unit tests (at this point, they were new to me) I was confident and feeling empowered. I was actually truly enjoying my job, finding myself getting into work earlier and earlier, spending more time on my lunch break to continue working on the new fun things Missguided were offering me. I had zero complaints.
A few months later, I was given the opportunity to join the mobile app team, this was completely new territory for me. I had never been involved in anything related to native app development or the React Native library, it presented a real learning curve. I joined the team and was paired with someone who has extensive knowledge and showed me what I was in for. I was very dubious at first, a little worried I wasn’t going to pick this up and I spent a lot of time trying to understand and get my head around this new way of developing. It was similar to React, but slight differences meant I initially made a few mistakes. Working closely with other developers and with lots of paired programming it began to stick, and I am truly enjoying it. I didn’t think I’d ever try anything other than web, let alone enjoy it!
Missguided allow us to use some of our work time for Code School, and it is the best thing I have been given the opportunity to do in any company. It runs for three hours every Friday afternoon. Added to that we also have a 4pm early finish on a Friday. Three hours to do whatever self-learning you want. Run a workshop, attend any workshops going on, hone your skills, start a project. Anything you want to improve; this is the time and a massive three hours a week in work time is something not to be sniffed at.
One last point to raise is tailored career progression. This is an hour or so every few months where you have a talk with your manager about your current skills, what you want to improve on in the next three, six, eight months and how you can get the help to sharpen up on those areas. Do you want to get better at unit tests? Learn a new language? Or even help out with other teams? This is where you can get a progression plan together to do that. I can also say that it works, I feel myself striving to complete them by our set target day.
I may have just spent all my time praising Missguided, but for once I actually can, there isn’t much I can complain about, this is a great company to work for and I’m happy. I am learning something new every day, great colleagues, and a great manager. Pursuing a career as a Software Engineer at Missguided is recommended.
