Startup life — from the eyes of a fresh graduate
Joining a startup right after University
Fresh out of university and in the middle of a global pandemic, I started my first job at Ufonia. It was an unconventional move compared to most of my peers who were joining big corporations. There were people who constantly asked me if I was making the right career decision. And honestly, it is not hard to see why. Working in a small scale startup comes with numerous preconceived notions. Poor work-life balance, lack of mentorship, uncertain future, unclear growth trajectory and the list can go on. However, I took my leap of faith.
My experience at Ufonia
I joined Ufonia as an AI Research Engineer. Coming from a computer vision research background, I wasn’t sure how my previous experience would fit in an autonomous telemedicine startup. One thing I was sure of was that I wanted to be able to use my knowledge and skills for making lives better.
As we know, the NHS is struggling to keep up with the waitlists, and the pandemic has just added fuel to this fire. Without proper intervention, it is practically impossible to see how this problem can be solved. Ufonia’s idea is simple — let AI handle routine interactions and free clinicians’ time for more critical procedures. But this simple idea had a lot of potential, and that’s what made me realise that I was in the right place.
Startup environments can be hard to navigate, especially for a fresh graduate who has always worked under some sort of supervision. Interestingly, it is very different at Ufonia. The general environment is extremely encouraging. People here come from a diverse set of backgrounds and yet there is a natural sense of belongingness. My first interaction with our autonomous system, Dora, was extremely enlightening. I come from an ML background but still, the level at which Dora could function was pretty impressive to me. My ideas on how to improve the system were very well-received by the team. Just one month into the company and I was actively working with new tools and owning a machine learning project. I felt fulfilled with the amount of stuff I was getting to learn in a short period. Although I was working a few extra hours, which is expected of a startup employee, I wasn’t feeling burnt out and that speaks a lot about the kind of workplace Ufonia is.
Three months into the company and we were working on a big project — getting Dora CE-marked. For those of you who have experience working in the medical field, you know how big a deal that can be. We worked extremely hard for the next two weeks — defining a coding standard, writing documentation and stress-testing the system, with one collective focus. The day we got our CE mark made me realise that I was part of something bigger than I thought and we were heading in the right direction.
I completed a year in Ufonia in October and within this one year, I worked on two research projects, submitted my research to a conference, made over 100 pull requests and experienced the satisfaction of working towards making lives better. Ufonia is not just a team, but it’s a family and we believe in what we do. So if you are thinking about whether you should join Ufonia or not, this is your sign.
