What’s it like at Haplo?

I graduated from the University of Southampton with an MEng in Computer Science. During my course, I found that I really enjoyed programming, so I wanted to find a job which would give me the greatest opportunity to develop my skills.

Talking to people who worked in large corporates, I was concerned that they spent a lot of their time dealing with bureaucracy, and they tended to specialise early on without getting to work on all areas of a modern application. It seemed the best way of finding a job which would really allow me to learn would be to look for an ambitious team at a smaller software company.

The interview process at Haplo was really helpful in understanding what it would be like, and turned out to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed the technical challenge, and then in the face-to-face interview, got to write some code which gave me a realistic picture of what the job would be like.

In my first few weeks, I got to grips with the Haplo Platform and the way the team works. As we work together so closely, it was much easier to learn than I had expected. The communication is immediate, and we’re all very careful to make sure nothing gets in the way of writing really good software.

I started by making quite small changes to our applications, and then quite quickly got on to larger and more complex tasks. It’s helpful to have lots of code to look at, and immediate feedback when I need it.

My colleagues have been really supportive, know their stuff, and are keen to help me learn. It’s quite different to my programming at university. As well as thinking carefully about quality and long-term maintainability, I know that when I finish a bit of work, it’s deployed that day and thousands of people immediately start using it!

I’m enjoying my work here. I get to program all day, my tasks are interesting and varied, and every day I learn something new.


Amrinderjit Singh, Software Developer at Haplo

MY WEEK AT HAPLO
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Most of my week is spent writing code, with minimal distractions. We have a quiet office and sociable lunches, which gives me plenty of focussed time to concentrate on code.

Prioritising getting things right first time means I spend very little of my week bug fixing, which is great. We develop with lots of discussion of how to design everything really well, and frequent code reviews.

I will usually have a couple of phone calls a week with clients, and possibly a site visit to discuss things in person.

We generally release on Thursdays, so that Friday can be left clear for general improvements and reflections on how we did this week.

We enjoy precision coffee making on our cafe-quality espresso machine, and semi-competitive sandwich making on extremely good bread from our local bakery.


Tom Renner, Software Developer at Haplo

A STUDENT PLACEMENT AT HAPLO

Haplo is currently a small team of just 8 people, which means that the developers can get involved with many areas of the software development process, from discussing requirements with clients to implementing the solutions.

Working here has developed my patience and perseverance, my ability to creatively apply research to implement a solution and my ability to manage my time to juggle many projects and deadlines. The skills I’ve gained on this placement will make me well equipped for fourth year and beyond as I continue to learn and improve as a software engineer.

I particularly value the soft skills I have gained and developed over the course of this placement. Above all, the numerous ways in which we must communicate in order to carry out effective work in ‘the real world’ has been emphasised to me, and I believe I have improved by continuously reflecting and practising at work.

I am very much looking forward to going into fourth year armed with the experience gained from this placement. I intend to take more coursework based modules and having seen examples of great software design and practised emulating those examples I believe my work will benefit greatly. Beyond university, as well, my desire to go into a software engineering job has been made stronger by working with Haplo. I am especially interested in working for more small companies, since you get to participate in both technical and nontechnical aspects of a project. For this reason, getting to see the management side of Haplo has also been fascinating, and I hope I would be able to implement some of the techniques I’ve seen here in my future career.
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Helen Root, Electronic and Information Engineering undergraduate at Imperial College, London

After graduating, Helen returned to lead development of one of Haplo’s core products.