One of our ‘insiders’ will be giving us an insight into their career, and what it’s really like to work for YLD.
What is your name?
James Wright
What is your role at YLD?
Software Engineer and Heading up the new Manchester Office.
What did you do before joining YLD?
I was actually contracting for YLD, but I decided to join permanently as I really identified with the company’s culture and goals.
I was fortunate enough to spend some time travelling through Asia between leaving and rejoining, but otherwise before YLD altogether, I was previously writing software for a range of London-based companies, such as Sky, Channel 4, and NET-A-PORTER.
Why did you decide to have a career in Software Engineering?
I have always had a keen interest in computers from a young age and ended up by chance being accepted into a university course; this course let me experience all aspects of Computing, from networking, systems design, and finally finding I enjoyed software development.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given in your career?
To never fear failure.
While one should always aim for success and getting things wrong is ostensibly embarrassing, there are many lessons that can be learned from such negative experiences, which can consequently be applied in the future.
What are you most proud of in your career?
Giving talks at meetups and conferences. I love presenting my understanding of and expertise in particular technologies with the hope of helping others.
What are you currently working on?
I’m primarily consulting at our client Trainline, contributing towards the next milestone of internationalising their websites. We’ve recently launched support for French, German, Spanish, and Italian, but we are now working to future-proof this functionality so that it supports any language out of the box.
Additionally, I’m establishing a YLD office in Manchester! After spending five years in London, I really wanted to relish in my north-western roots and prove that there are amazing and talented engineers up here.
We’re currently based at Central Working in Deansgate and are focusing on growing the team; be sure to hit me up if you’re in the area and are looking for your next engineering role!
How does working at YLD differ to the companies you’ve worked at before?
The main draw to YLD is its passion towards knowledge sharing within our field. Alongside our meetups (ReactJS Girls, London Node.js Meetup, London Tensorflow Meetup, Manchester Web Meetup) and engineering blog, our flat hierarchy and central Discord team naturally facilitate technical discussions across all skill levels; I’ve thus been able to celebrate my strengths and identify my weaknesses.
Most of the other companies at which I’ve worked have been too product-focused to concern themselves with something that should be a foundation of our industry.
What tech are you excited about at the moment?
WebAssembly.
I’ve only recently started investigating it, but a common web platform that can be targeted by a plethora of languages and their encompassing paradigms is a ridiculously exciting prospect.
What are you looking forward to in the future with YLD?
As a corollary to building our capability in Manchester, I really look forward to leading a development team. I love coding, but I really want to assist a group of fantastic developers in making invaluable contributions to our clients.
What is your professional long-term goal?
Beyond becoming a team lead, I’d say my long-term goal is to become a technical authority within software engineering, perhaps focusing upon delivery in general.
You can find James online here:
And at the Manchester Web Meetup driven by YLD:
#worldsbestteam
Written by Emily Rising — Tech Consultancy at YLD.
