SHARE NOW Profile. Adam Groves
Adam Groves joined us when our engineering team was still in its growing phase. He immediately could help in the pricing domain and then work on the payment api. Adam is the main driver and architect behind the pre-auth topic. Adam is like a swiss army knife and works in all areas of our stack.
In the beginning of 2020 Adam took over my role as Chapter Lead so that I could concentrate more on architecture and reducing technical complexities. The migration and cooperation worked flawlessly. It is a joy to work with Adam because he always has a very positive attitude and pragmatic approach to solving complex problems.
Adam has a big interest to bring our domain to the next level together with the Business-Intelligence Team and to reduce and question old legacy systems.
I’m looking forward to solving the next major features together with Adam in our pricing domain. Introduction by Helmut Ebritsch (Principle Engineer & Pricing Doctor at SHARE NOW).
Tell us about yourself
I was born in 1974 in St. Albans England, the oldest of 3 children. To give you an idea of how old that is, I can still remember the excitement of going from 3 TV channels to 4! My dad’s family are from London, while my mum’s family hail from Donegal in Ireland.
I was reasonably academic at secondary school until I fell off the rails a bit, but still managed to scrape through my A-Levels and go on to university where I studied … something.
After graduating I worked in London for a few years before quitting and moving to Berlin in 2000. The plan was to stay in Berlin for 6 months, figure out what I want to do with my life, and then go back to the UK. But fate had a different idea and I met my wonderful wife, with whom I have been together for 20 years.
I got into programming pretty much by accident. I was working for an interior designer in Berlin and noticed that on larger projects, we often struggled ensuring all contractors and partners were using the same drawing versions. I started building a web application with limited programming knowledge to solve this and although it ultimately never saw the light of day, that application got me my first job as a developer.
That was 14 years ago, and since then I’ve worked for various companies of differing sizes in different sectors, meeting fantastic people and constantly learning.
I joined car2go in January 2019 as part of the payment team.
Tell 3 facts, where 1 is a lie:
- I studied Performing Arts at Loughborough University.
- I went to school with someone who later brought about the collapse of a large bank.
- I am a German citizen.
Work related
What was the most exciting project at SHARE NOW where you’ve participated?
Taking over credit card processing from Daimler in Spring 2019 was a pretty big deal. Charging customers requires a lot of care and attention to detail!
But the feature we’re currently working on with our colleagues in Business Intelligence is the one I’m most excited about. Without going into too much detail, it will enable us to react far quicker to changes than we are currently able to. I think this will be a real game changer.
What is the coolest technology you wish we were using at SHARE NOW? Where and how can it be used?
There have been a few times at SHARE NOW where I would have loved to have been able to travel back in time and query certain data as it was then. There are a few databases out there which fulfil this requirement, one of them being Datomic.
What would you do, when you were not working in the information technology area?
I’ve often thought about this and to be honest, I’m really not sure. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have stumbled across a career that I really enjoy. But if I hadn’t … maybe acting?
What’s your biggest screw up during your professional career?
I had a period where I was employed by two companies in Switzerland simultaneously, where one was the main client of the other. The service provider had a calculation tool which I had been built and operated by an agency. The agency pulled out shortly after I joined leaving me alone at the wheels!
While trying to get my head around this beast and putting out the occasional fire, I decided to rewrite the parser for the calculation rules. I schooled the users regarding the upcoming changes and scheduled a maintenance window for deployment for Tuesday evening. Although I was pretty sure that I had adequately tested my new solution, come Wednesday morning I started receiving increasingly irate emails from customers informing me that the calculations were all wrong. I then realised that it would be nearly impossible to rollback the changes and spent the next few days and nights fixing everything.
Needless to say, I have a lot of love and respect for QA 😉.
Personal
What’s your hobby and why is it cool? What’s the best way to enter this hobby as an amateur?
I got into windsurfing about 2 years ago and absolutely love it. Wandlitz lake has a great windsurf hire station and school directly next to the bathing area, so if you want to get your feet wet (pun intended!), they’re worth checking out.
I actually never took lessons though — I have a sailing permit and I basically learnt by watching youtube videos and regularly making a fool of myself!
What’s your favourite book, what have you learnt from it?
The Count of Monte Cristo. Not sure if I learned anything from it, but it is a fantastic tale!
Which podcasts do you listen to?
Making Sense — Sam Harris
Will We Destroy the Future with Nick Bostrom was an eye opener!
The Adam Buxton Podcast
Both interviews with Chris Morris are fascinating, even if you’ve never heard of him (or Adam Buxton for that matter!)
Brian and Roger
It’s a podcast about two fictional “friends” whose relationship is documented by the answer phone messages they leave each other.
Which persons have influenced your life the most?
My wife and two boys. Cheesy but true!
Two truths one lie — answer
- I studied Performing Arts at Loughborough University
Lie! Studied Civil Engineering. But I did start Improv theatre a few years ago and can highly recommend it!
- I went to school with someone who later brought about the collapse of a large bank
True! Even got made into a film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Trader_(film)
- I am a German citizen
Wahr! I have both British and German citizenship. Brexit-Proof!
