Over the course of the next few months, once a week, I’m going to be delving into the working from home lives of our Engineers.
First up is Mike Wallace, a Software Engineer who has joined Rob Gillies team in Kaluza based in Bristol.
Tell us about your position here at OVO and what are the type of projects you’re involved in?
I am a software engineer working on the Orion Ops Tooling team (or OOT, if you prefer acronyms).The Orion Energy Platform is the next-generation energy platform at OVO and working on OOT means I’m helping build and run the services that allow OVO Ops teams to resolve customer exceptions quickly and with minimal stress. The current focus is on supporting the migration of Ovo customers onto the Orion platform which means expanding the OOT services so that any problems with a customer account can be easily resolved within the platform.
All software engineers at OVO are encouraged to work across the technology stack so my first few weeks have involved everything from shipping new UI features, adding new functionality to various microservices and fixing the odd bug here and there.
How was your onboarding whilst working from home?
The onboarding experience went really smoothly. A laptop was sent the week before and I had a call with my manager in the morning to get everything set up - even VPN access worked on day one. Meeting my new colleagues virtually rather than in-person was definitely a change from previous jobs but everyone was friendly and made me feel welcome. Even though the team had only recently made the transition to being a remote team they had clearly adapted really well and I felt like I was joining a team of seasoned remote workers.
One thing you enjoy about working from home and one thing you’ve found challenging?
Working from home has freed up the time in the day when I would have been commuting and it’s great to be able to spend that with my family instead. It’s also nice being able to take the dog for a walk at lunchtime.
The main challenge has definitely been balancing my time and attention between work and family while the schools are closed due to lockdown - those six hours a day when the children were at school and I could work without interruptions seem like a distant memory now. We’ve all had to adapt to new routines and having a bit of flexibility with my hours has been a huge help in making sure I can be available to my children when they need me.
What’s been your favourite thing about the job so far?
Definitely all my amazing new colleagues. There is a real breadth of experience in the engineering team and everyone has been willing to share what they know and help me out when needed. This has made my first month at Ovo thoroughly enjoyable.
Stay tuned for next weeks blog entry, Thanks Mike for an insight into your onboarding experience at OVO so far.