February is the month of love! I’ve been asking local folk how they found & why they love their jobs so they can inspire you.
Two members of the Crunchboards team in Brighton, share with us what makes them love their working day:
Chris - our Senior Tech Lead:
Having moved to Brighton to study Computer Science at University of Sussex, I began investigating career paths in a variety of fields I was interested in. Having a passion for writing fast, efficient, well structured code from university that was based on concepts to change the way we interact with computers, I wanted to find a company where my work would make a difference, where regardless of age or experience, everyone had valued input, where I would have no limitations or boundaries for what I wanted to achieve. I met Hannah (one of the soon to be founders of CrunchBoards) in a local coffee shop, where I was given the opportunity to craft a system completely from scratch. I had found my company. CrunchBoards offers what I like to think as every developers dream job.
Being surrounded by an enthusiastic, highly skilled and motivated team, there is not a single day in over 2 years where I haven't learnt something new and more importantly, useful. Whether it’s finding that extra performance tweak, improving a user's experience or creating highly sophisticated features, you are constantly improving your skillset.
2 minutes walk from every type of food that can be offered in the Laines and 30 seconds from Brighton central train station, it is the perfect place to be located. Not only is it fun and interesting, It is incredibly satisfying solving these obstacles in order to truly shift the movement of an industry. We have a great company ethic of work hard, play hard (our go-karting team rivals that of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team) where the team is rewarded for delivering great work and have the supportive environment to produce it to the best of their abilities. We also occasionally wear pigeon masks. This may sound particularly odd, but it’s a historical tradition at CrunchBoards and we take it very seriously.
Sam, Frontend JS Developer:
I studied BSc Computer Science at Sussex University, we were taught basic coding principles while learning Java, but we were allowed to complete our dissertation in any language we wished. I had always had an interest in JavaScript, web-design and online technologies, so I spent months before my dissertation learning JavaScript, websockets and Node.JS, so for my dissertation I could create an online multiplayer Zombie game using HTML5 canvas. After my dissertation was handed in, a seed was planted and I started freelance website work whilst finishing university. Since University I’ve been in website based development roles, which keeps me developing my skills.
I heard about the job through my friend Chris, I was the fourth developer through the door!
CrunchBoards is just plain and simply a great place to work with some great people. We have a lovely office in the middle of Brighton, which has a ping-pong table and the ability to bring your dogs to work. Although working here is a lot of fun, everyone here understands that when work needs to be done, it should get done. The office has a wonderful ability to go quiet, where everyone has just got their head in their work, but at the same time, it can just turn into 5 minutes of trying to get a dog to wear a cardboard box like a turtle shell.
The staff at Crunchboards proving that working is also fun!
They are growing rapidly and are hiring new developers, check out their roles on the Jobs Board.
This is the second in a series of guest blogs from members. If the Games Industry is more your thing then read this from West Pier Studio.