Tim Hilton is a Senior Software Engineer at Audacia. Tim joined the company in 2014, having completed a degree in Robotics. While there was programming involved in his degree, Tim had little development experience at the time of joining Audacia. Benefitting from hands-on development and guidance from other employees at the time, Tim has since gone on to work across a number of industries including construction, industrial manufacturing and agriculture.
What projects have you worked on?
One of my first ‘big’ projects was working with a global industrial manufacturer. I was part of the initial team for that project, working on redeveloping the company’s existing legacy systems. What started as a small team has since branched out into a whole suite of products that we have delivered collaboratively with this company, including a Knowledge Management Suite and a Quotation platform.
I’ve also worked in house building and construction, including working with one of the UK’s leading luxury housebuilders to migrate to new CRM and ERP platforms and integrate these tools together.
More recently I have also assisted in the development of a bespoke no-code platform. I really appreciated the principles behind that system; the idea has been to build a very flexible system that people can use in ways that you haven't necessarily planned in advance.
I’ve also worked on a project with one of the world’s largest agricultural food processing companies. Audacia has had a long partnership with this organisation, which began with us developing a commodities trading platform as part of a complex legacy system rebuild.
I’ve really enjoyed being part of a team who developed business critical software for such a large organisation. Today I’m the Technical Lead on that project, which I find to be a really exciting role because it gives me the opportunity to shape the direction of a project and work with other developers to find the best solution for solving complex technical challenges.
Working at Audacia is exciting because you get exposed to a variety of industries. This has allowed me to to work on a range of projects across different industries, giving me the opportunity to learn new technologies and expand my skill set.
How have you progressed in your role since joining Audacia?
The culture of wanting people to progress has always been at Audacia. Appraisals have always existed at the company, but today they are just one of many ways that people can share their thoughts about their role and how they would like to develop in their Audacia career.
What’s important though is that promotions and title changes aren’t things that always necessarily need to be formally raised by Audacia employees; the company really recognises and rewards hard work.
Ultimately, Audacia supports you in your career choices. At one point, for example, there was a point where I was serving as a Project Manager on a project as well as a Technical Lead.
This was a great experience, but what I learnt from it was that I don't really want to be a Project Manager. I’ve found Audacia to always be very responsive to how employees want to shape their career. In my case it was that I wanted to focus my career as a developer and not transition into management.
How are teams structured?
Project teams will vary depending on the project requirements. Due to the flexibility of the combination of roles, you're always working with new people. Having this combination of roles allows us to deliver secure and scalable software.
At a team level, the culture is very inclusive and open. It has always been that if you see something that can be done better, just say. Everyone is always very welcoming to new suggestions. Whether it's using a better library, framework or approach.
What is the culture like at Audacia?
Culture has always been a really important thing for me; I think the culture at Audacia is a big part of why I’ve been here for so long. I joined with little experience, but have always found fellow employees to be very supportive and positive.
A big part of our hiring process is about finding people who are not just technically competent but also all round nice people. If you’re hiring fundamentally nice people like I believe Audacia is then the culture takes care of itself from there.
We’ve grown so much recently and, with that growth, comes more great people who are integral in shaping the wider company culture at Audacia as well. Whether it’s taking part in a virtual pub quiz every Friday, organising trips to the cinema or sharing recommendations for local restaurants and cafes, there’s always things for people to be getting involved with. All of these things just create a friendly environment.
What is the favourite part of your role?
I enjoy having the freedom to do what I love; programming. It's as simple as that, really. I value everything else that goes on around this core responsibility, such as code review meetings, but fundamentally I love solving technical challenges.
Sometimes there’s the idea that, as you become more senior, you have to move more into management, but this isn’t the case at Audacia. I’ve had the flexibility to get involved with some project management, if not for the actual experience, then just to get a better idea of what I really want to pursue; that’s coding.
I like that the company has this flexibility and that there's not one defined career path. Ultimately, they just want you to succeed.
Audacia is a leading software development company based in the UK, with headquarters in Leeds. Find out more about what it's like to work here and our current open vacancies on our careers site.
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