Jamie’s Journey at Street Group: Seven-and-a-Half-Years
Jamie Redfern is now one of our Product Managers on Spectre, he joined Street Group in January 2017 and was our second full time hire. When he originally applied, it was for a sales support administrator role, which didn’t mean much to him at the time, but the idea of working for a tech start-up in Manchester city centre sounded perfect.
Fresh out of university with a degree in ancient history, Jamie was looking for an entry-level office role and entry into the tech world, having always had an interest in this space. Despite his lack of experience, he applied for the role, thinking it was a dream job he probably wouldn’t get! Two days later, he received an email from our Co-Founder Heather, inviting him for an interview.
During the initial interview with Heather and Tom (Co-Founder), he shared a couple of “embarrassing” stories, including his lack of coordination from a cricket game in college. It clearly worked as Jamie was offered the job just a couple of days later!
The early days were filled with excitement as well as nerves for Jamie; joining a small team (for context, we’re now 140 people — when Jamie joined the team, it was just Tom, Heather and Kathryn!), meant he was involved in various tasks — answering phones, helping with debugging, conducting sales calls and helping out with marketing. The small team at the time meant they all wore multiple hats, so it was a period of learning (quickly!) and growth.
Over time, Jamie’s role evolved more towards marketing and he took the lead on several initiatives, transitioning from traditional print marketing to digital marketing strategies, learning and adapting as he went. Although Jamie enjoyed marketing, he was also really interested in tech, so began getting involved testing new features, identifying problems and bugs and providing valuable insights to the development team. Over time, his role evolved to include both bug work and marketing functions, which allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of the tech side of the business — he began learning how to code and honed his planning and organisational skills.
After a while, it was agreed that Jamie would transition into the engineering team full time, which he was really excited about. During this period, Jamie’s role was primarily centred on testing and organisation. He became involved in organising tech team ceremonies, unofficially acting as a scrum master. As he was eager to find his niche within engineering, Jamie learnt how coding worked, believing this could be the right path for him. However, our Head of Engineering at the time guided him towards Product Management, a role Jamie hadn’t initially considered, but turned out to be just perfect for him.
Now taking on the role of Product Manager, working alongside Ben Brown, our Head of Product, and later joined by two of our Product Managers, Jonathan and Danny, Jamie learnt a lot about best practices and alternative approaches. Ben was incredibly supportive, guiding Jamie and helping him develop and support his ideas. Jamie utilised his annual £500 L&D budget to read valuable product books like “The Goal” and “Sprint”. More recently, he attended a Product conference in London (Mind the Product), hearing from inspiring industry leaders, giving Jamie and the team numerous takeaways and ideas to drive change at Street Group. AI was also a significant topic at the conference.
Jamie has learnt a lot from the diverse backgrounds of his colleagues; how to communicate ideas effectively, as well as how to distinguish good ideas from less well-thought-out ones. He has also become more open to different ways of working and understanding what “good” really means to him.
In addition to his professional growth, Jamie also organises our annual murder mystery night around Halloween. Gerry, our Spectre Tech Lead and unofficial social secretary, signed Jamie up to host it for the first time a couple of years ago. Jamie took on the challenge by writing the murder mystery himself, mapping out the office schematics, and creating a detailed script for each person. It was a huge success and has now become an annual tradition by popular demand. Rumour has it, Jamie has already started planning this year’s murder mystery!
Jamie’s career journey, from support to marketing, marketing to testing and development, and development to product, is a testament to what you can achieve with internal drive and a supportive environment. He has found his true calling in Product and continues to make a significant impact at Street Group, both professionally and personally.
To find out more about life at Street Group, follow us on LinkedIn, see what our team are saying on Glassdoor, or visit our careers site.
