As part of our Talent Talk series, we caught up with Sussex-based Cyclr 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.
Cyclr is an embedded integration platform for SaaS applications. They provide developers with an API connectivity solution that assists with the creation, publishing and maintenance of integrations within their own application.
As the company grows, we are seeing opportunities for career progression within the business and this is strongly encouraged. Philip Bryan - CTO
Fraser Davidson- CEO 
What do you look for when interviewing someone for your team?
I am less interested in academic qualifications and much more interested in drive, experience, and achievement. We have recruited graduates but also recruited those who are completely self-taught or who have proactively sought to learn new skills on their own time. The most important thing is a positive attitude and a genuine interest in the chosen role. We are looking for people that are going to embrace responsibility for delivering outcomes – as a result, we are very flexible when it comes to working practises.
What opportunities are there for career progression at Cyclr?
We are a young company that is growing rapidly. You are joining a team that is perhaps only a small percentage of the size it will ultimately become. Joining a team in a rapid growth phase gives a huge opportunity for the right individual to progress through the organisation and formulate an engaging career path. We are very keen to nurture talent within the company and are super proud of our staff retention rate.
Philip Bryan - CTO 
What do you look for when interviewing someone for your team?
I am looking for someone who is enthusiastic about the role and who will be able to bring additional skills to the business. The aim when recruiting is to bring in colleagues who will be able to contribute to the success of the business with new ideas and experiences.
What opportunities are there for career progression at Cyclr?
As the company grows, we are seeing opportunities for career progression within the business and this is strongly encouraged. We offer opportunities for staff members to expand their skills through the use of online training courses to enable them to take on more challenging roles.
Cameron Carlin - Connector Developer 
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
I'm a Connector Developer. A typical day starts with a stand-up followed by helping the newer members of the team with anything they're stuck on. After that, I would usually be picking up something new from the sprint to deliver. I've got the benefit of being able to take one day a week to expand my knowledge by doing some work on the front-end of the website as that’s an area I feel I'd like to pursue in my career.
What experience do you need for the role?
For entry-level roles you need some prior experience of coding, but you learn a lot on the job. I joined Cyclr after a year of working in retail. I had the benefit of having done a computer science degree before that, but I know that not everybody on the team has come from a coding background.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
It's getting a working connector out to a client, as cliché as that sounds. I think like most jobs that involve coding, there's such a great sense of satisfaction when you ship a working product that you can be proud of.
I am less interested in academic qualifications and much more interested in drive, experience, and achievement. Fraser Davidson- CEO
Ben Ashing - Platform Developer 
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
I work as a software developer in the platform team. Typically I'll write a to-do list of everything I need to get done, which I need, otherwise my mind's all over the place. Working through the list gives me a pretty diverse range of tasks. The most common being: development work from the current sprint, support queries and bug fixing, reviewing work from other members of the team, and deploying new releases. Each day can look pretty different from the last, so things never get boring.
What experience do you need for the role?
I joined the company as a connector developer after graduating with a bachelors in computer science. I did that role for about a year before moving on to the platform team. I'd say that apart from knowledge of object oriented programming, and basic web development, the most important thing would be the ability and drive to learn new things. I've been on the team for around two years now and I'm still regularly having to do things I've never done before.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
I really enjoy problem solving, so any day where I feel like I've made progress with a task or fixed an issue is a good day!
Mireille Pedder - Connector Library Administrator 
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
I work part-time as the Connector Library Administrator in the developer team, since September 2021. Each day kicks off with a short stand-up meeting, always a handy way to keep up to speed on who's doing what. Recently a typical day has involved immersing myself in WordPress - discussing the requirements with Daniel, our marketing manager, working on the theme and customising content pages.
What experience do you need for the role?
Connector Library Administrator is a new role at Cyclr, and a new role for me. I'm applying the technical knowledge and experience I have from years of application and web development, but in a new environment and in new ways. So far I've worked on projects to maintain the Cyclr Connector API developer reference knowledgebase, and the Cycle WordPress Connector pages. Cyclr is a place where the capacity to learn and problem solve is important, rather than the list of technical skills you bring from past roles.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
I'm learning new things every day, so there's the stimulus of researching and experimenting, and the buzz from doing something which was a mystery to me the day before.
If you want to work at Cyclr, you can find out about their current career opportunities via our
Jobs site.
