As part of our Talent Talk series, we caught up with Brighton-based DabApps to find out more about life at their company and what they look for in new team members. They're currently recruiting for a number of positions.
DabApps are a leading UK software agency, designing and building bespoke web and mobile applications for clients of all shapes and sizes! But it's not just about developing great software, they develop talent too, celebrating diversity and encouraging people to be themselves.
A number of our team have been with us for a long time and progressed from very junior roles to senior roles
What do you look for when interviewing someone for your team?
Many of our roles are technical in nature and require specific skills and experience, but when we are hiring we always put a strong emphasis on finding people that match our core values.
Collaborative
The team strives and thrives together. All project work is tackled by a multidisciplinary team, involving designers, engineers, project and business management. Great communication and honesty are essential and allow us to form great partnerships both with our colleagues and our customers, ensuring successful project outcomes. Rockstar developers with huge egos are not for us.
Expert
We always want to be the best at what we do, and we look for others that share this ambition. In Senior roles that will mean having exceptional technical skills and experience but in more junior roles we are looking for the potential (given time and help) and desire to become the best. If the team are excellent it makes everything easier; projects get delivered on time, stress levels are lower, and we can all trust each other to do the right things.
Friendly
We often spend more time with our work colleagues than we do our families and friends. It’s so important that we like and value the people we work with, can see things from each other’s points of view and can engage on a personnel and professional basis.
In our offices, we create a friendly and open environment where ideas flourish and problems are solved. In these remote working times that is even more important - we have to be able to support each other, have a laugh and help each other through what is a hard time.
What opportunities are there for career progression at DabApps?
DabApps are a growing company and we want our team to grow with us. A number of our team have been with us for a long time and progressed from very junior roles to senior roles responsible for one or more products/clients. Ongoing training and development is provided, supported and encouraged.
Despite the economic impacts of covid-19 we have continued to grow and are well positioned for this to continue in the years ahead, presenting more opportunities for our team to develop and take on more exciting challenges.
In our offices, we create a friendly and open environment where ideas flourish and problems are solved
Tim Stimpson, Engineer
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
As a senior engineer with responsibility for one of our largest client projects, my day can be very varied. My day will include a morning stand up to plan the day with the PM and developers, attending client meetings to help scope new requirements and system strategy, and the fun part of actually writing and reviewing code with the project team. I also have people management responsibilities, so enjoy helping to set goals and develop the team.
What experience do you need for the role?
I came from a project management background and transitioned into the software developer role, which I think helps give me some project delivery perspective as a software engineer. But I think being a self-starter, with a real enjoyment of writing code and a strong ability in solving problems is a great start. Our tech stack is Python and React, so experience in these languages would be helpful also.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
I get a lot of enjoyment out of building applications for clients. There is a great buzz from taking the idea from a client and being able to turn that into a production feature or application which the client will enjoy using. As part of this, I enjoy modelling the client’s requirements and working with the team to gain consensus on the correct approach to complete the work. Then seeing the team work well together to deliver this.
Summer Parmenter-Andrews, Project Manager
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
As a Project Manager, my job is to ultimately define, organise and execute the delivery of client projects, ensuring they are delivered on time, on budget and in alignment with the scope (to achieve the client’s vision!).
The journey from initial concept to delivering a successful project can vary from project to project, so as such, there isn’t often a ‘typical’ working day. Most of my days do, however, include some level of:
- Discussing new feature ideas with clients & helping them to define a scope for each new project.
- Working closely with the creative teams to create concepts & designs for new features or platforms.
- Identifying requirements and solutions on a technical level with the development teams and breaking these down into smaller tasks with; ‘User stories’ and ‘Acceptance Criteria’ to ensure they are delivered to scope.
- Testing the design & feature outputs once the team believe they are in alignment with the scope and ready for review.
- Reviewing and improving internal processes to ensure the consistent & smooth running of the business.
What experience do you need for the role?
Having worked as a project manager for the past 8 years and seeing how diverse the digital world is, has meant I’ve helped deliver a range of different projects, from static websites to Content Management Systems (CMS) to mobile & web applications (each with varying levels of difficulty!). Given the diversity of projects, I’d say that having great personal and communication skills with the ability to understand and drill into client requirements is crucial in allowing you to deliver successful projects. A successful project manager would also be; highly organised, have excellent attention to detail and be able to manage multiple projects at any one time.
Having some technical knowledge and basic understanding of the tech-world would be useful, but not essential! One of the benefits to working with such a multi-experienced team is that there is always the opportunity for continued learning and development.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
The range of clients and projects we work with means that no two projects are the same which keeps work exciting and challenging. Combined with the ability to work flexibly and autonomously allows the team to retain their focus in working towards common goals resulting in the delivery of some seriously impressive projects.
The high level of job satisfaction you get working at DabApps is testament to the wonderful team you work with and the culture that the organisation has strived to achieve.
If you like the sound of working at DabApps, you can check out all of their latest job roles here.
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