As VP of engineering at Ravelin, my role is to manage the engineering team — making sure they’re happy and have everything they need to continue doing amazing work.

I began my career as a software developer, working my way through the ranks at companies spanning industries including gaming, fintech and investment banking. This is now my third time being VP of engineering at a start-up. I find the scaling up phase really exciting and love laying the groundwork for future growth.

What really convinced me to join Ravelin was the culture that I experienced during the interview process. I was given the chance to meet the founders, as well as those I’d be working closely with day to day. I was also impressed by how committed Ravelin is to career development.

Professional development at Ravelin

We have spent a lot of time clearly defining career progression paths.

Whether you’re interested purely in the technology side of things, or are keen to pursue a path into management, there are always plenty of opportunities to learn and hone your existing skillset.

For example, we arrange third-party line management workshops for anyone interested in becoming a manager. Through these workshops, employees learn how to effectively manage, motivate and inspire their teams.

We also provide every member of the team with a generous personal development budget to undertake relevant courses or training to build on existing competencies or gain the skills needed to land their dream role.

Team building and knowledge sharing

We like small teams. They’re efficient, ensure everyone’s voice is heard and naturally foster mentoring. At the same time, we like to encourage all our teams to mix with the wider company. This happens more naturally in the office, but we’ve made a conscious effort to keep this up at home through various virtual social events like online escape rooms, pub quizzes, board game nights, yoga, pilates, random group Deliveroo lunches and wine tastings. It’s a great way to keep everyone connected and feeling included while working remotely. And it’s a lot of fun too.

Additionally, every other Thursday we run tech demos where colleagues will share knowledge with the wider team on a particular subject of interest or on an area of Ravelin’s technology. For example, this could be educating teams on industry specific terminology, or sharing insights on our in-house graph database. We catalogue and store these recordings so they can be viewed by anyone who missed the session or is a new joiner.

Mentor programme

You might have heard from Tamara that there’s a mentor programme for new starters. The programme is something we love to encourage our existing employees to be a part of as well. For example, we have senior developers offering mentoring to new developers who want to improve their skills. We also pair people from different departments who are interested in learning about different sides of the business.

If you’re interested in joining a company that puts your career development front of mind, has a great company culture and truly cares about the wellbeing of its employees, then you should definitely consider a career at Ravelin.