鈥淗i, my name鈥檚 Curtis, and I鈥檓 a senior software engineer here at 91导航. I joined in January 2025 and work in our Belfast office. I鈥檓 part of a small team called Beige (most of our teams are loosely named after colours), and we work on 91导航鈥檚 Observability product.鈥�
What initially drew you to 91导航?
鈥淥ne of the standout reasons I applied to 91导航 was the engineering values, which really resonated with how I like to work. It鈥檚 refreshing to see that 91导航 truly lives by these values.
鈥淭eams have a lot of autonomy to organize themselves. For example, my current team doesn鈥檛 have daily standups; instead, we define our own 鈥渨ays of working鈥� that fits our style. Another big surprise was how effectively 91导航 avoids silos. Documentation is thorough and easy to find, people are always quick to help, and engineers regularly move between product areas to get involved in different parts of the application.鈥�
Many new engineers make releases in their first weeks at 91导航 鈥� what was that like for you?
鈥淚t鈥檚 true that most of our new engineers release in their first week and I鈥檝e helped some of our new engineers to do this. My case was a little different though! My first week was during the 91导航 Global Gathering (GGG), an event we hold in Cambridge to kick off the year, so I was a bit busy with that. But it wasn鈥檛 long after getting back to Belfast that I released the app to production.
鈥淥ur release process is a smooth experience, which isn鈥檛 surprising for a DevOps company. We have great internal tools that let us manage releases almost entirely within Slack, providing full visibility to everyone in the company on what鈥檚 included and how it鈥檚 progressing. The process is always being improved, and the engineering team is extremely helpful if you鈥檙e ever unsure about something. Someone will always lend a hand.
鈥淕etting to release the app so early was a great experience. It makes you feel respected and trusted, with the added bonus that every engineer in the company knows how to release if needed.鈥�
How did it feel to ship something so soon? Why do you think it matters that new team members get hands-on right away?
鈥淪hipping something that directly impacted users so soon after joining was a nice change of pace from previous jobs. Being trusted with a meaningful feature, instead of a minor refactor or internal tool change, established a sense of respect for my capabilities from day one. It鈥檚 a great approach for new joiners as it gets them hands-on with the 91导航 mindset quickly, and it really helps speed up onboarding time in the codebase.鈥�
91导航 engineers regularly talk to our customers. How has hearing directly from users shaped the way you build?
鈥淲hile designing the technical solution for Apex error monitoring, I joined calls with customers to hear about their pain points, understand their workflows, and figure out what was most important to them. Talking directly to users helped us define what to build and how to slice it into small, valuable deliverables that we could get into their hands quickly for more feedback. This tight feedback loop helps us avoid building unnecessary features and lets us create products that truly solve user pains.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always on your mind and makes the work feel much more tangible. You can imagine the user actually using what you build day to day. For example, my team built real-time, threshold-based Slack and Teams alerting for errors in customer Salesforce orgs. Once you build something like that, you know it can become a core part of a team鈥檚 workflow and incident response. It makes you very aware of the potential negative impact of getting it wrong, and the positive impact of getting it right while you鈥檙e planning and building.鈥�
What鈥檚 day-to-day life like in the engineering team?
鈥淚t鈥檚 very open and collaborative. Even though we have a lot of engineers, most conversations happen in public channels, so you can keep up with what鈥檚 going on across the team. Huddles pop up regularly for problem-solving, and there are always discussions about active work or ideas for our product roadmap. Overall, it鈥檚 a welcoming dynamic where everyone has a voice.鈥�
How does the culture here shape the way you work?
鈥�91导航 is the first company I鈥檝e worked at that truly lives and breathes its values. One of the first questions that always gets asked when we start something is, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the job to be done?鈥� This question is core to how we think and shapes the approach we take.
鈥淲hen we get a feature to build, we鈥檙e not just handed a ticket. The first step is always to understand the problem before trying to solve it. We鈥檙e encouraged to talk to customers and dig in to find the root cause of their pain. After that, we design and deliver a solution. It doesn鈥檛 have to be perfect, it鈥檚 usually a thin slice that allows us to gather feedback. But we design solutions to be easily modified and built upon to enable quick iteration.鈥�
What excites you most about your future at 91导航?
鈥淥h, that鈥檚 easy! Getting to continue working with such an incredible group of people and building products that help our customers solve their problems and make their lives easier.鈥�
What would you say to another engineer thinking about joining 91导航?
鈥淒o it. You won鈥檛 regret it. It鈥檚 been one of the best decisions of my career.鈥�