What it means to me, being a developer at Street Group

I started working at Street Group in Summer 2021 after spending a number of years at a creative agency. I remember noticing during my first week how confident and calm everyone was and how comforting that felt. Moving from a fast-paced, chaotic environment at an agency, into the highly-organised and focused Street Group was the first of a few welcomed changes I’ve enjoyed.

Another is the sheer abundance of talented people. There are quite a few development teams working on various projects, but each of these teams are filled with people who are always willing to give you their time of day to help you out. This goes for developers, designers and our product owners who seem to know everything that exists in our products and why.

There is always a plan!

I consider myself quite an organised person and I thrive in an organised environment, this was probably the biggest factor that led me to Street Group. Every project we work on is run through its paces in terms of planning and design, even the ones with quick turnarounds go through a proper thought process.

As a Senior Developer, I am able to get involved in a lot of the technical decision making processes. We use our refinement sessions to hammer-out ideas, into feasible, buildable projects. This collaboration is very rewarding as everyone gets their say and we’re able to discuss points to form solutions. It also means new ideas, new ways of solving problems happen more frequently and things never get stale.

Doing the right thing

Each day begins with a morning stand-up, giving us a chance to catch up with everyone on our team. This always helps plan how the rest of my day will go, if another developer needs assistance or if I need some help with anything, we’ll typically arrange a pairing session to work problems together. Pairing with other developers is something that I was introduced to at Street Group. Previously taking up another developer’s time would have been seen as wasting two people’s time, but at Street Group this is actively encouraged.

It’s been clear for a while now, that Street Group cares about doing the right thing, we’ve worked out that it saves time in the long run to just do the right thing in the first place! We actively avoid building tech-debt into the product for a quick-win. Again, refreshing!

What does that mean for me?

Having been at Street Group for a good while, I know that the pitch that was sold to me during the interview process, the great things I read in posts similar to this one by other employees, was probably under-sold in all honesty. The no-bullshit, fully-transparent dream is a reality. Tom and Heather, the owners, have cultivated actual culture at Street Group, a place where there are no dickheads by design. A place where I can feel truly invested in and responsible for the work that I do every day.

I’ve spent the majority of these past nine months squeezing as much knowledge and skill out of everyone I possibly can, across multiple teams. This has been invaluable to me as a developer, and my knowledge has gone through the roof! If you’re looking to improve your skills or you’ve got skills to offer to those willing to learn, honestly, Street Group is a great place to be.