Our Leadership Principles build on that foundation. They extend our shared values into clear expectations for leading at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, setting a consistent standard for how we support our people, strengthen our culture, and scale.

How we define leadership

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, leadership shows up in a few different ways: managing people, managing teams, managing projects, or being responsible for making decisions that shape how we operate.

As the business scales, we recognize that relying on informal learning and individual interpretation of what leadership is, and how we want to do it, is no longer enough on its own.

Why principles, not rules

We didnā€™t want to hand leaders a rigid playbook of ā€œwhen X, do Yā€. That kind of prescriptive guidance doesnā€™t scale well, and it doesnā€™t reflect how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų actually operates.

Instead, we chose principles, because they capture the why behind how we want leaders to act, not just the what. That matters when youā€™re facing a situation that doesnā€™t fit neatly into a checklist.

By focusing on underlying intent, principles equip leaders to navigate new and unfamiliar situations with judgement and confidence. They provide guidance without being arbitrary, and clarity without removing autonomy. Where helpful, we include examples to ground each principle in real situations, but the principle itself is what enables leaders to reason, adapt, and make good decisions as context changes.

So, why now?

91³Ō¹ĻĶų is at a stage where getting this wrong or leaving it open to interpretation could have a negative impact on the incredible team and product weā€™ve worked so hard to build. Growth comes with exciting wins and milestones, but it also comes with added complexity: larger teams, a higher output of work, and more moments where a leaderā€™s choices have a broader impact.

However, our culture continues to be rooted in trust, autonomy, and making good decisions for our customers and for each other, so we didnā€™t need an overly structured guidebook or policy for our leaders either.

ā€œWe wanted a shared, documented understanding of what good looks like for leaders at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, so we can scale deliberately while protecting the culture that makes us successful.ā€ Melissa, People Partner

The Leadership Principles help create alignment without adding rigidity. They set shared expectations for how leaders think, prioritise, communicate, and make decisions, while still leaving room for context and judgement.

Grounded in how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų actually works

The one rule we had for developing new principles is that it had to feel authentic (and not ā€œnewā€) to how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų already operates, so we drew on examples where leadership has made a meaningful difference, and where greater clarity would have helped.

ā€œT³ó±šyā€™re authentic because they were reverse engineered from how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų already operates. The way our leaders operate has had a huge impact on our success, and the principles came from distilling why that is successful. The process of creating them came about from interrogating why things work well here (and also the times when they didnā€™t) and distilling that down to its essence.ā€ Ali, Development Manager

The Leadership Principles do not replace our company values. Instead, they describe how those values show up in leadership, so weā€™re building off something well established at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, that weā€™ve battle-tested and feel confident applying.

ā€œI hope leaders reach for the principles in real moments when things arenā€™t obvious. Leadership can be hard, and these should help make expectations clearer and support teams to experience great leadership day to day.ā€ Melissa, People Partner

By grounding these principles with the values we believe in, weā€™ve created guidance that is authentic and easy to work with.

Everything we do for our team, we do with our customers in mind

The Leadership Principles arenā€™t just about internal culture ā€” theyā€™re about what we deliver to customers. Clear priorities help teams focus on solving the right problems. Thoughtful decision-making allows us to learn faster and improve continuously. And teams that feel supported and aligned are better equipped to build reliable, high-quality solutions that customers can trust.

By setting a shared standard for leadership, the Leadership Principles help ensure we continue to scale in a way that supports both our people and the customers who rely on our product.

Looking ahead

As 91³Ō¹ĻĶų continues to grow, the Leadership Principles give us a foundation to build on. They help leaders develop with confidence, support teams to thrive, and enable the business to scale deliberately without losing what makes it work.

You can read our Leadership Principles in depth here.

As a candidate applying for a role, you might be wondering: can I use AI to help me during the interview process?

The short answer is yes. Weā€™re also interested in how you use it, what you find helpful, and where it falls short. Whether youā€™re applying to a role which involves you writing code, supporting customers, closing deals, or keeping our operations running smoothly, hereā€™s our guidance on using AI effectively and transparently as you prepare for and participate in interviews.

The person behind the application

Many candidates use AI to help with applications and interview prep. Used well, it can help you feel more prepared and confident. But weā€™re hiring you, not a tool. We want to understand how you think, how you work with others, and how you approach real problems.

Using AI is completely your choice, and we donā€™t assess you differently just because you have or havenā€™t used it. We judge on the output and how you present it. That said, especially in technical interviews, weā€™re intentionally testing your understanding of the fundamentals and your direct technical ability. A working solution on its own doesnā€™t always show us how you got there or what you really understand.

For live technical interviews, weā€™ll usually ask you not to use AI tools unless the interviewer explicitly says itā€™s OK. This helps us get a clearer picture of how you reason, your level of knowledge, and how you solve problems in the moment. Those fundamentals matter, especially when using AI on more complex tasks where human judgement is key.

If youā€™ve used AI as part of your preparation, feel free to tell us what you used it for, how you used it, and what helped or didnā€™t. Weā€™re genuinely interested in how people adapt their day-to-day to new tools, and it often gives us useful insight into how you might approach work at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Our aim is to strike a fair balance between giving you support and still getting to know the person behind the application.

Refine, donā€™t replace

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, one of our core values is ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų, team, selfā€, and a big part of that is trust and openness. AI can be really helpful for organising your thoughts or making your writing clearer, so feel free to use it for that.

Just make sure the examples and experiences you share are genuinely yours. If AI helped you reflect on or shape how you talk about them, thatā€™s fine. We just want to understand your role in them, how you approached challenges, and what you learned along the way.

Helpful guidance on using AI

A note on accessibility

We want everyone to have a fair shot at landing a role at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. If you use AI tools as assistive technology, whether thatā€™s for note-taking, speech-to-text, or processing information due to neurodiversity or a disability, please let your recruiter know. Weā€™re more than happy to make reasonable adjustments so you can show your best self.

The bottom line

Weā€™re looking forward to meeting you. We hire people who are curious, collaborative, and pragmatic. If AI helps you bring those qualities across more clearly, feel free to use it.

Just remember weā€™re trying to get to know the real person we might one day build great things with, and that still needs a human touch.

Ready to apply? Check out our open roles.

In modern software development, caching is a primary strategy for performance, and 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is no exception. With the scale of work our platform handles each day, from deployments and comparisons to backups and automation, caching helps us keep the UI fast, the experience smooth, and our infrastructure efficient. But as we recently discovered, even the most helpful optimization can introduce surprises when used in the wrong place, leading us on an unexpected debugging journey.

The double-edged sword of caching

Caching works on a simple principle: store frequently accessed data in fast-access memory to avoid expensive operations like database queries or complex calculations. But when caching mechanisms operate behind the scenes without proper visibility or control, they can become memory black holes that are difficult to detect and debug.

Case study

This case study examines an email processing service built on AWS that exhibited unexpected memory behavior. What appeared to be a straightforward integration with S3 revealed a hidden complexity that caused memory consumption to balloon - and the culprit wasnā€™t immediately obvious.

System architecture and workflow

The system is designed to process inbound emails using an architecture on AWS. The process flow usually looks like:

1. Ingestion: AWS Simple Email Service (SES) receives an email.
2. Storage: SES stores the email content as an object in an Amazon S3 bucket.
3. Notification: A notification is published via Simple Notification Service (SNS) and sent to a Simple Queue Service (SQS) queue.
4. Processing: A message in the SQS queue triggers a processing service to retrieve the corresponding email object from S3 for processing.

Anomalous memory profile

During operation, the processing service exhibited an anomalous memory profile. Its memory consumption rapidly increased to over 2GB and then plateaued ā€” we were expecting to see transient spikes that would return to a baseline after each email was processed. While the behaviour didnā€™t trigger an out-of-memory exception in this instance (as the service was provided with more resources that it would actually need), it did indicate a critical memory leak.

Problem identification and analysis

The issue manifested during the S3 object retrieval step. The processing service utilised a shared internal library, S3StoreService, which was presumed to be a simple wrapper for S3 interactions. The standard pattern involved calling a StoreForBucket method to get an IStreamStore interface, from which the object was retrieved via a TryRetrieve call.

Root cause

An investigation into the S3StoreService implementation revealed that it was a sophisticated abstraction employing a chain-of-responsibility pattern that introduced several layers of caching:

• ExpiringStreamStore: Checked for the object in a local file system cache.
• CachingStreamStore: If not found locally, this layer would check an in-memory cache. If the object was not in the cache, it would be retrieved from S3 and then added to the in-memory cache.
• TracingStreamStore: Provided logging and metrics for the operations.

The root cause of the memory issue was the CachingStreamStore. In this particular workflow, each email is retrieved and processed exactly once. The caching mechanism was therefore retaining every processed email in memory, providing no performance benefit as the cached data was never accessed again. This led to continuous memory growth as new emails were processed.

Resolution

Once the source of the memory consumption was traced to the unnecessary caching within the IStreamStore abstraction, the team was able to implement a direct fix.

The S3StoreService was bypassed in favour of using a native S3Client to interact directly with the S3 bucket. This modification eliminated the caching layers that were unsuitable for this single-read use case. Following this change, the serviceā€™s memory profile immediately returned to the expected behaviour: nominal baseline consumption with brief, transient spikes during active processing, fully resolving the issue.

An overactive appetite

The road to memory leaks is often paved with well-intentioned abstractions. We discovered our applicationā€™s memory had developed an insatiable appetite, a problem traced to a ā€œsmartā€ caching feature that was too clever by half. It diligently saved every piece of single-use data it touched, proving that even a presumed silver bullet can miss the target and hit your memory allocation instead.

If you enjoy learning through real problems and collaborating as a team, email us at team@gearset.com or use the in-app chat!

What initially drew you to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œOne of the standout reasons I applied to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was the engineering values, which really resonated with how I like to work. Itā€™s refreshing to see that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų truly lives by these values.

ā€œTeams have a lot of autonomy to organize themselves. For example, my current team doesnā€™t have daily standups; instead, we define our own ā€œways of workingā€ that fits our style. Another big surprise was how effectively 91³Ō¹ĻĶų 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.ā€

Many new engineers make releases in their first weeks at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų ā€” what was that like for you?

ā€œItā€™s true that most of our new engineers release in their first week and Iā€™ve helped some of our new engineers to do this. My case was a little different though! My first week was during the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Global Gathering (GGG), an event we hold in Cambridge to kick off the year, so I was a bit busy with that. But it wasnā€™t long after getting back to Belfast that I released the app to production.

ā€œOur release process is a smooth experience, which isnā€™t 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 whatā€™s included and how itā€™s progressing. The process is always being improved, and the engineering team is extremely helpful if youā€™re ever unsure about something. Someone will always lend a hand.

ā€œGetting 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.ā€

How did it feel to ship something so soon? Why do you think it matters that new team members get hands-on right away?

ā€œShipping 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. Itā€™s a great approach for new joiners as it gets them hands-on with the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų mindset quickly, and it really helps speed up onboarding time in the codebase.ā€

91³Ō¹ĻĶų engineers regularly talk to our customers. How has hearing directly from users shaped the way you build?

ā€œWhile 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.

ā€œItā€™s 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 teamā€™s 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 youā€™re planning and building.ā€

Whatā€™s day-to-day life like in the engineering team?

ā€œItā€™s very open and collaborative. Even though we have a lot of engineers, most conversations happen in public channels, so you can keep up with whatā€™s 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, itā€™s a welcoming dynamic where everyone has a voice.ā€

How does the culture here shape the way you work?

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the first company Iā€™ve worked at that truly lives and breathes its values. One of the first questions that always gets asked when we start something is, ā€œWhatā€™s the job to be done?ā€ This question is core to how we think and shapes the approach we take.

ā€œWhen we get a feature to build, weā€™re not just handed a ticket. The first step is always to understand the problem before trying to solve it. Weā€™re 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 doesnā€™t have to be perfect, itā€™s 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.ā€

What excites you most about your future at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œOh, thatā€™s 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.ā€

What would you say to another engineer thinking about joining 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œDo it. You wonā€™t regret it. Itā€™s been one of the best decisions of my career.ā€

Getting involved from day one

Our interns joined the engineering team, and from day one they were pairing with teammates, fixing real bugs, and building features that went straight into our usersā€™ hands. They werenā€™t just shadowing; they were making a tangible impact. One intern told us the way we share feedback internally stood out most:

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų has a very open culture for sharing feedback. All changes must be reviewed by another engineer and there is a really positive culture of sharing minor improvements to make everyoneā€™s work the best it can be. Youā€™ll even find yourself reviewing other peopleā€™s code and giving suggestions to them during the internship!ā€

Josh, Olive Team

Every day is a new challenge

As the weeks flew by, the interns were put to the test and their skills and confidence grew exponentially. They became more independent, taking on larger-scale features and tackling complex challenges. Unlike some internships that focus on one single project, the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų summer programā€™s real-world focus brought diversity to our internsā€™ work, which they all enjoyed.

ā€œI was always doing something related to what was going on, and the same types of tasks that other engineers have to do rather than anything separate. Itā€™s also a good option if you want to have a lot of variety during the internship, rather than doing one big project the whole time.ā€

Sami, Crimson Team

Beyond the day-to-day coding, the internship is a chance to experience life at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to the fullest. Our interns were invited to our annual summer party, where they got to relax and connect with the wider team. It was a chance to experience the vibrant culture that makes 91³Ō¹ĻĶų such a special place to work.

ā€œIt was a blast, and itā€™s an experience Iā€™ll definitely treasure. The summer party felt like a small glimpse into what 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is all about. And I know if I had more time, Iā€™d have discovered even more of what makes this place so special.ā€

Hala, Cobalt Team

Gaining confidence alongside the technical skills

As we say goodbye, weā€™re confident that our interns are returning to their final year of university with a wealth of experience and are well-prepared for their next steps. Theyā€™ve gained not only technical skills but also the confidence to excel in a professional environment.

ā€œT³ó±š internship at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is more than just a program. It is an extraordinary experience where youā€™ll gain hands-on experience, meaningful mentorship, and confidence in your skills. If youā€™re looking to develop professionally, gain practical experience, and have a good time then 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the place for you.ā€

Hala, Cobalt Team

Weā€™re incredibly proud of what all of our interns have accomplished and we hope that one day weā€™ll welcome them back to the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team.

What encouraged you to join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œWhat really sealed the deal was the product. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is product-led in the truest sense. Of all the companies Iā€™ve worked for, itā€™s the best Iā€™ve seen at maintaining a tight grip on product-market fit. That makes the approach to sales really different, because our role becomes about educating rather than persuading. Weā€™re not convincing people to buy something they donā€™t need; weā€™re helping them discover a solution that genuinely makes a difference.

Add to that the culture: high expectations paired with genuine support, and a real absence of ego. It was a no-brainer.ā€

How would you describe the culture of the sales team?

ā€œItā€™s a smart, inquisitive group of people. Our team operates more like consultants than traditional sales reps. We work hard to understand what the customerā€™s real problem is, and how our solution can solve that.

Thereā€™s also a strong sense of personal accountability. Everyone takes ownership of their own targets, but just as importantly, we lift each other up. Success here isnā€™t about hitting your number if the teamā€™s falling short. We win or lose together.

While Sales is always target driven, we donā€™t take ourselves too seriously. We like to have fun, celebrate wins, and build strong relationships, both inside and outside the team.ā€

How do you like your teams to work?

ā€œFor me, great sales performance comes down to two things: process and culture.

Iā€™m a big advocate of frameworks like MEDDIC and Sandler. They help us understand how complex organizations buy software and adapt our approach accordingly. Every customer is different, so we take a structured but flexible approach to each deal.

On the cultural side, I draw a lot from models like Lencioniā€™s five dysfunctions of a team. That means being open, honest, and accountable. Weā€™ve built a low-blame, high-feedback environment where people feel safe to share challenges, fail fast, and learn quickly. Itā€™s the kind of culture that helps you grow ā€” not just as a salesperson, but as a teammate and a person.ā€

What excites you most about where 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is heading?

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų has had a phenomenal run in the SMB and mid-market space, and that momentum isnā€™t slowing down. What really excites me now is building on that success and pushing into the enterprise space.

That means new challenges, bigger deals, more complex buying cycles, and evolving how we sell. Weā€™re expanding our alliances function, refining our processes, and setting ourselves up to dominate at the enterprise level. Itā€™s a chance to build something new on top of a foundation thatā€™s already strong.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI genuinely believe 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is one of the best software companies in the world. The numbers speak for themselves, but itā€™s when you step inside the business that it really clicks.

Youā€™ll be learning from exceptional people in an environment that balances ambition with respect for your life outside of work, and weā€™re transparent with results, so youā€™ll always be able to see the difference youā€™re making. If youā€™re someone who likes tough challenges and is willing to put in the effort, the growth and learning opportunities are massive.

More than anything, this is a place where individuals matter. Your ideas, your creativity, and your work ethic can have a real impact and not just within the sales team, but across the business.ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€œMy route into sales leadership wasnā€™t exactly traditional. I started out as an accountant ā€” something I donā€™t shout about too often! From there, I moved into investing, then founded my own company, and eventually came up through the marketing ranks into sales.

That variety of experience taught me to approach problems creatively. Itā€™s also why I love hiring people from diverse backgrounds ā€” you donā€™t need a textbook sales CV to succeed here. What matters is curiosity, integrity, and a willingness to learn. If youā€™re coming from a different background, you can apply to join our talent community and be the first to be notified of future opportunities.

Another thing folks probably donā€™t know is that I now live in Scotland, and I reckon itā€™s where Iā€™ll be for the long haul. Though Iā€™m still in the office most weeks and sometimes bring my dog, Nala, with me too.ā€

Which 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Slack channel do you hang out in most?

ā€Ąįā€™m probably most active in the dad jokes channel (my kids roll their eyes on a daily basis) and the Formula 1 chat. Iā€™ve been a car guy since I was a kid, and F1 is a big passion of mine.ā€

Want to join the team?

Take a look at our open roles and see how you can shape your own career with us.

What got you into sales?

ā€œSales can get a bad rap, canā€™t it? Youā€™re probably thinking ā€˜Wolf of Wallstreetā€™. Honestly, the best sales people Iā€™ve met have been the polar opposite of this (and thereā€™s a lot of super inspiring folks that work at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we have a pretty cool team).

As someone thatā€™s quite introverted, I never felt like I fit the mold of the stereotypical sales person when I was in rooms of ā€˜dodgyā€™ sales teams at previous companies Iā€™ve worked for.

I suppose the determination to do sales my way, by solving challenges and working with the customer as a peer, was the thing that made me want to move into sales and really succeed with the right principles.ā€

Whatā€™s your favourite part about working in sales?

ā€œTalking to customers all over the world is a really enjoyable part of working in sales. Itā€™s also great to work with them to achieve a common goal.

We also have such a great internal team here at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Thereā€™s support when you need it, feedback to help you define your skills further, and a great culture of celebrating success.ā€

Whatā€™s something people might not expect about working in sales at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œBefore joining, I didnā€™t realise how much effort and care 91³Ō¹ĻĶų would put into developing us in-role, as well as enabling broader career plans. This is done through thorough training on both a technical front and from a sales perspective, but also through continuous feedback.

Our culture encourages people to embrace discomfort, which in turn allows you to flourish and grow personally and professionally.ā€

Tech sales can feel male-dominated, what advice would you give other women thinking about a career in sales?

ā€œDiversity is crucial to success at any company, itā€™s more than just a tick box exercise. Having a well rounded team with different experiences only strengthens a team. So my advice would always be to embrace and lean into the differences you bring to the table, rather than trying to conform.

In my opinion, the most important thing is to make space for other women to enter this area. We want to pave the way for a more balanced future, where we can accurately represent our customer base and build the best team.ā€

In what ways has 91³Ō¹ĻĶų supported you to grow and succeed in your career?

ā€œI knew 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was the right company when I was able to show up authentically as myself and I was not only accepted, but celebrated. Thatā€™s really allowed me to come out of my shell and thrive. The feedback led culture really balances celebrating the wins with continuous improvement, so you can fine tune your skills to continually keep improving. But itā€™s also a safe space to experiment. Thereā€™s a real interest in development, both in-role and for career advancement so Iā€™ve always felt challenged and motivated here.ā€

How would you describe your mindset when approaching sales?

ā€œT³ó±š idea of ā€˜Equal Business Statureā€™ is something thatā€™s critical in sales. Itā€™s the idea that youā€™re on the same level as the customer, you arenā€™t subservient to them ā€” because you have knowledge and value to bring to the conversation as an equal. It encourages you to think collaboratively and how you can ensure youā€™re on the same side of the table as them. Thereā€™s no desperation, only a curiosity to best serve the customer with the right kind of solution.ā€

What keeps you passionate about sales?

ā€œItā€™s the challenges that make sales interesting. We are solving problems, whether thatā€™s from a technical, commercial or even personal point of view. Seeing yourself climb the leaderboard and keep up with the ranks of your talented team mates gives such a sense of satisfaction.ā€

Want to join the team?

Take a look at our open roles and see how you can shape your own career with us.

Making a real impact ā€” one conversation at a time

Thereā€™s something truly special about being a CSE at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų ā€” helping users solve their trickiest problems and seeing the impact firsthand. Itā€™s not just about answering chats or troubleshooting deployment errors; itā€™s about making someoneā€™s day easier, turning frustration into relief, and sometimes even earning an enthusiastic ā€œYou saved my bacon!ā€ (Yes, we collect those like trophies.)

I have to admit we love to celebrate that too. Our team is quick to shout out wins, whether itā€™s a tricky issue untangled, a customer who left glowing feedback, or a particularly smooth troubleshooting call. Thereā€™s a whole Slack channel dedicated to these moments, filled with appreciation from both customers and teammates.

To be honest, for me personally thereā€™s no better feeling than wrapping up your day where someone came in stressed and left saying, ā€œWow, that was so helpful, thank you!ā€ Itā€™s these moments that remind us why we love what we do. Because at the end of the day, being a CSE isnā€™t just about solving problems ā€” itā€™s about making a real difference, one conversation at a time.

A day in the life

Our teamā€™s bread and butter is helping users succeed with 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. That might mean answering chat questions, hopping on calls to unravel Salesforce mysteries, or updating our public-facing documentation. Think of us as part detective, part educator, and part friendly tech wizard. (Sadly, no robes included.)

Being a CSE means youā€™re never bored. One minute youā€™re troubleshooting deployment issues; the next, youā€™re brainstorming how to improve user experience. Youā€™ll also learn a tonne ā€” not just about the product, but about communication, collaboration, and why turning it off and on again sometimes actually works.

Work-life balance: yes, itā€™s a real thing

91³Ō¹ĻĶų isnā€™t one of those companies that preaches work-life balance while secretly handing you a 24/7 pager. Here, flexibility isnā€™t a buzzword; itā€™s built into the culture.

Our hybrid model means we usually work some days in the office and some days from home, but thereā€™s wiggle room for lifeā€™s curveballs. Case in point: When my son Leo arrived, I was able to work remotely more often to be around for all the milestones (and the nappy changes). Flexibility like that makes a huge difference.

And itā€™s not just about location, itā€™s about energy. Need a breather between calls? Grab a coffee and chat with a teammate. Want to dig into some learning or personal projects? Our team rota ensures everyone gets self-development time. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų trusts you to get your work done ā€” and to take care of yourself in the process.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Speaking of teammates, the CSE team is the heart and soul of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Weā€™re a diverse bunch with backgrounds as varied as our Slack emojis. From the UK to the US, weā€™ve got 20 people ā€” 10 in each country ā€” who bring different skills, perspectives, and snack preferences to the table.

Collaboration is key, whether weā€™re troubleshooting a userā€™s issue or planning the next team outing. And oh, the outings! From bowling to go-karting, weā€™ve done it all. Weā€™ve also enjoyed dinners of every variety ā€” Italian, Indian, Japanese, Lebanese ā€” and mastered the art of office banter. So if you have a sharp sense of humor (or just really enjoy terrible puns), youā€™ll fit right in.

More than just troubleshooting

Sure, answering chats and calls is a big part of the job, but being a CSE at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų means youā€™re also at the center of everything. Weā€™re the bridge between our customers and the development team, gathering invaluable feedback and real-world use cases from users that directly influence the features we implement. Many of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s most-loved features started as ideas or pain points shared by users with the CSE team. Weā€™re also hands-on when it comes to testing new features from engineering, ensuring that what gets released truly meets user needs.

Every project feels like a chance to make a real impact, not just for our team but for our users. Plus, thereā€™s something immensely satisfying about looking at a completed project and thinking, ā€œhey, we made this better.ā€

Fun: the secret ingredient

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, fun isnā€™t just an afterthought, itā€™s part of the job description. Whether weā€™re celebrating milestones with cake (some people like it orange!), roasting each other in the most helpful way possible, or tackling tricky challenges together and laughing through the struggle, thereā€™s always something that brings us closer. And when itā€™s not work-related? Weā€™re busy finding new ways to have a blast, whether itā€™s spontaneous celebrations, team get-togethers, or just seeing who can come up with the most horrible personalised Slack emoji.

Even during remote days, we find ways to stay connected. Slack channels dedicated to memes, virtual coffee chats, and the occasional team trivia session keep the vibe alive. And when weā€™re in the office? Youā€™ll always have a walk buddy regardless of the weather (welcome to the UK) or you can join an ever-changing series of table games by the kitchen.

Why youā€™ll love it here

Working as a CSE at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų isnā€™t just a job, itā€™s an experience. Youā€™ll learn a tonne, work with brilliant people, and get the kind of support that makes you want to do your best every day. Youā€™ll also laugh. A lot. Whether itā€™s at a team outing, during a meeting, or because someone just made the worst dad joke youā€™ve ever heard (guilty), the laughter is constant.

And the best part? Youā€™ll be making a difference. Every chat you answer, every call you take, every document you write ā€” it all helps our users succeed. Thatā€™s what makes this job so rewarding.

So, if youā€™re looking for a role where you can grow, have fun, and be part of an amazing team, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų might just be the perfect fit. Just be prepared to learn, laugh, and maybe find yourself in a heated competition over who can slap the fastest cards in a heated game of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.

Vito met with Kris from the People team to discuss his experience at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų so far.

Kris: Itā€™s lovely to chat with you today, Vito. Iā€™m really interested to hear more about what it was like to go from a Dev Connect attendee to a 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team member.

Vito: I got a LinkedIn message back in February that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was running this training session led by Kevlin Henney.

ā€œOriginally, as a maths graduate, I didnā€™t have any formal training as a software developer. So when I came into the industry, I cut my teeth by watching Kevlinā€™s talks online. When the opportunity came to see him live, there was no way I was going to pass that up!ā€

Heā€™s always very entertaining and thought-provoking when he speaks. I enjoyed getting out of the office and speaking to some other developers in the area and it helped to broaden my perspective on the industry a bit. It was a good afternoon.

I think thereā€™s a risk, when youā€™re working in a company, of becoming very tunnel-visioned and I think it was a good opportunity to survey the land a bit better ā€” Kevlinā€™s talk was immensely thought-provoking. His talk explained the ways that developers can influence and affect architecture ā€” which I thought was very interesting. In particular, he spoke a bit about architecture decision records, which 91³Ō¹ĻĶų actually uses and I think are very helpful.

Kris: Itā€™s really great to hear that you learned something from the event and were able to come and see, in person, someone that youā€™ve been watching and learning from online for some time. The best thing about Dev Connect is that the engineering community gets access to a thought leader, hopefully learns something from the day, and comes back again next time. And while Dev Connect isnā€™t a recruitment event, sometimes weā€™re fortunate to meet talented people whoā€™d like to come and work with us afterward ā€” like you have. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about what encouraged you to apply?

Vito: Iā€™d been looking for a change in job for a little while and although I wasnā€™t coming with the goal to apply to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, Iā€™m glad that I did. The fact that the afternoon had been organized at all was a very good sign to me. It was encouraging to see that the company takes engineering seriously. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų doesnā€™t just view engineering as a means to an end.

I spoke with a few people ā€” Conor Mullan, Sara Turkentine, Sam Williams and Richard Jones ā€” and there was a strong sense of enthusiasm for the company, a general positivity, and excitement about what the company was doing.

Kris: And after the event, once you kicked off that conversation with Conor and you both realised this could be a really good fit, could you tell me a little bit about the hiring process experience? What sold you on 91³Ō¹ĻĶų during those conversations?

Vito: So, I quite enjoyed the interview process. I mean, of course, I found it nerve-wracking as well because I thought it looked like a good place to work. The technical interviews were challenging enough to be interesting and allow me to demonstrate what skills and knowledge I had without being so hard as to be daunting.

ā€œI liked the collaborative nature of the interview and having the ability to actually have a conversation with the interviewer and discuss different approaches to solving the problem.ā€

And then on the non-technical side, the values interview was also very encouraging ā€” I liked having the opportunity to speak to non-technical folks.

It really did cement for me this idea that the company is one team as a whole. Itā€™s not siloed which is great. And from speaking with the interviewers, I managed to paint a general picture in my mind of what the company was like. So one of the things I was looking for was stability in the company and a sense that this was a successful company. It had moved out of the start-up phase and it was into the scale-up phase. It was growing but it wasnā€™t corporate. It still has that sort of fun light-hearted start-up feel to it, but also serious about the job to be done and never boring.

Kris: It sounds like you had an enjoyable experience with the hiring stages and then it became time to join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. We all remember those feelings of being new and the apprehension that comes with it. Could you share some of your first impressions of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų from when you joined and what that experience was like?

Vito: Yeah, absolutely. Iā€™ll definitely echo what you say about apprehension. I mean, I was impressed by how knowledgeable everybody was, but at the same time I found that slightly intimidating. But that soon dwindled when I found how supportive everybody was and just how readily people wanted to offer help. It felt like there were people who wanted to see me succeed ā€” which I found very reassuring. Iā€™ll talk a little bit about my buddy Rhianne who really helped to put me at ease and introduced me to folks around the business, not just within engineering but of course the people team, customer success, and sales. I think she was a great person to speak to in those early days.

On the technical side, Iā€™d definitely say I was impressed by the release frequency. Firstly, I was able to release the product within the first 3 days of me being here, that was super motivating. And the fact that the product is released twice a day. Iā€™ve come from previous companies where it would be years between releases ā€” and now itā€™s just hours.

This cadence of releasing helps me actually feel less stressed because I know releases can go at any time, and Iā€™m not fighting to get something in for a strict deadline. I was lucky enough to join right before the summer party and that was a good occasion for getting to know people as well!

Kris: Itā€™s so great to hear that as a brand new engineer to the team, youā€™re able to add value so quickly, which Iā€™m sure builds your confidence.

Vito: I once said to a former manager, that releasing the product is the most important thing we do, and anything that gets in the way of that needs to be eliminated. So having had that validated, in under a week, was just fantastic.

Kris: When we talk to engineering candidates, we do talk a lot about that bias towards action and lack of bureaucracy ā€” itā€™s really great to hear an example of that in action. Now that youā€™ve settled in, can you share any examples of a project that youā€™ve really enjoyed working on since joining?

Vito: Iā€™m currently working on setting up an automated data pipeline that will make some of our internal metrics accessible to more people. On the technical side, itā€™s been a good opportunity to learn more about cloud and data engineering, which are subjects that I havenā€™t had the opportunity to explore before. So, Iā€™m definitely embracing discomfort there.

But then also I love having the autonomy to research and develop a solution in collaboration with the customer. Itā€™s so refreshing to have a genuine discussion with the customer and talk about what their requirements are. Then I go away and look at how we can divide things up into slices and deliver valuable progress quickly. This projectā€™s been a very good example of that.

Kris: Thatā€™s a great example of the type of customer focus and collaboration we have at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. What advice would you give to anyone looking at attending a Dev Connect event or applying to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų in the future?

Vito: In terms of Dev Connect, I think itā€™s a great opportunity to network and find out more about whatā€™s happening in the industry even if you donā€™t intend on applying to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

ā€œIf youā€™re thinking about applying to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, I would say think about how technical excellence is relevant to your customers and how doing a good job and focusing on quality really pay dividends. I think those are things that we really value here.ā€

Kris: Brilliantly put, Vito. Thatā€™s all my questions ā€” thank you so much for your time and weā€™re all looking forward to hearing more about the great work youā€™re doing at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Vito: Thank you.

Want to join the team?

Feeling inspired by Vitoā€™s story? Take a look at our open roles and see how you can shape your own career with us.

To celebrate these milestones, weā€™ve asked Oli Lane ā€” one of the original team of 7 ā€” to take us on a tour of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s growth.

2014

Where it all started

In 2014, a group of developers from Redgate were finding Salesforce deployments painful, error-prone, and impossible to bring under DevOps best practices. They set out with a plan to change that and create a solution that could bring DevOps to Salesforce.

2015

7 Gearcitizens and a big idea

By 2015, the initial foundation of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų had been created ā€” it was a platform that could compare the metadata between orgs, build and deploy a package, and monitor orgs for changes.

After a lot of back and forth deciding on a name and logo, we went to Dreamforce as a vendor which was the springboard for our very first sale! At the time, we didnā€™t know just how far this idea would take us.

ā€œIā€™ve seen 91³Ō¹ĻĶų grow in every way imaginable ā€” weā€™ve gone from a very small team within engineering who would cover everything, to now having dedicated specialists for every role.ā€

Stephen Chambers ā€” Head of Product Design, Cambridge

2016

7 Gearcitizens building a better product

By establishing a culture of trust and giving ourselves the freedom to learn through trying, we could innovate rapidly and collaboratively, pushing the boundaries of what the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų platform could do.

But we wanted to do more than just streamline Salesforce deployments. We wanted to build an all-in-one solution to bring DevOps to the Salesforce ecosystem in a way that was accessible to all role types ā€” so the app continued to grow.

ā€œOur culture of trust and transparency is so unique. Iā€™ve never worked anywhere else where there is such an ingrained high-trust culture. That gives people the space they need to grow and do great work, whilst providing support and discussion where itā€™s useful.ā€

Jason Mann ā€” Chief Operating Officer, Cambridge

2017

13 Gearcitizens entering a new era of sales and marketing

Sales were really picking up pace, so it was time to start expanding the team by bringing in new expertise to the Sales and Marketing teams to keep up with demand.

That year also saw us introduce support for Salesforce DX, Jira integration, and static code analysis.

ā€œItā€™s been incredible to be part of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s journey ā€” watching the company grow, learn, invest in great people and remain committed to keeping the culture as strong as ever has been such a special experience.ā€

Ellis Toms ā€” Senior Marketing Manager of Customer Marketing, ABM and Salesforce Partnerships, Cambridge

2018

26 Gearcitizens moving to a brand new office

In early 2018, we were still working out of a spare room in Redgateā€™s HQ. But after doubling in size, we needed more space. So we packed up all our equipment and officially moved to our first office: the Bradfield Centre in the Cambridge Science Park. You can still find the pull request notification in Slack to update our address on the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų website!

The 91³Ō¹ĻĶų platform continued to grow, too. Data loader was added to help teams seed sandboxes, so teams could deploy with confidence.

On our quest to make DevOps accessible to all members of the Salesforce ecosystem, we also added integrations for all major version control providers ā€” so anyone can get up and running with version control with clicks, not code.

ā€œIā€™ve been lucky to ride the wave of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s growth, and I feel Iā€™ve really developed over the last 5 years. The people I work with are smart, kind, and care deeply about getting stuff done ā€” I canā€™t wait for the next 5 years, as we continue scaling 91³Ō¹ĻĶų rapidly, but in a fun and human way!ā€

Ben Tozer ā€” SVP, GTM Strategy and Operations, Cambridge

2019

47 Gearcitizens already outgrowing the new office

We quickly started taking over more and more space at the Bradfield Centre, to make room for our ever-increasing number of Gearcitizens. By the end of 2019, we had to set up an additional space on the first floor of the Bradfield Centre!

The platform grew massively too, as data backup was a new pillar of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. We continued to build on our existing functionality too, adding data masking and the ability to create pull requests from the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų UI.

ā€œT³ó±š culture is like no other place Iā€™ve worked ā€” everyone genuinely wants to help each other achieve. And whatā€™s really amazing is the fact that weā€™ve managed to maintain our strong culture as weā€™ve grown.ā€

Sara Turkentine ā€” Talent Acquisition Manager, Cambridge

2020

79 Gearcitizens navigating growth in a pandemic

As we already had a flexible working environment, moving the team fully remote during the pandemic wasnā€™t a big shift. We did everything we could to make sure all of the team were set up for success, and worked hard to ensure we stayed as connected as we wouldā€™ve been in person despite being fully remote.

This was also the year that we set up DevOps Launchpad ā€” a Salesforce-specific DevOps learning platform thatā€™s free for everyone! The 91³Ō¹ĻĶų app also introduced high frequency backups and deletion auditing, to ensure customers could be compliant with key frameworks.

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų really trusts people to do their jobs well, and gives them space and autonomy to do that. Sure, other companies do this too, but nowhere near to the extent that Iā€™ve seen at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. I really appreciate that we still focus a lot of effort into making sure we arenā€™t losing our way with how weā€™re working and communicating together.ā€

Alice Easy ā€” Development Manager, Remote

2021

128 Gearcitizens go international

91³Ō¹ĻĶų officially became international, after opening an office in Chicago! Weā€™ve always put our customerā€™s success at the heart of what we do and want users to get prompt help when they need it ā€” by opening an office in the US, we expanded our support hours even further.

Our backup offering got some big upgrades in 2021, with support also added for Salesforce Industries (Vlocity) to the metadata deployment workflow.

ā€œAll the cultural sayings most companies tout are actually true here. Having product-led founders makes selling the tool easier than those with other backgrounds and motivations. Itā€™s also refreshing to work for a company that sets realistic and fair sales goals, as well as valuing opinions from all job levels.ā€

Ryan Nebuda ā€” Sales Engineer Manager, Chicago

ā€œIā€™ve loved being a part of the growth of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s Chicago office over the last 2.5 years. When I started, our Chicago team was ~3 people strong ā€” now, weā€™ve more than quadrupled that number! ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s emphasis on continuous learning has been instrumental in my career growth and the supportive culture ensures that everyoneā€™s input is valued ā€” I feel excited to contribute every day.ā€

Taylor Volk ā€” Account Executive for Key Accounts, Chicago

2022

199 Gearcitizens winning awards

This was the year that we took the Best Companies Awards by storm, bagging a total of 4 awards! This was a great acknowledgement of the trusting and transparent culture weā€™d worked so hard to build and maintain in the midst of rapid growth. We also opened a new product development centre in Belfast, an up-and-coming city for exciting tech development.

Our CI functionality got a huge upgrade in 2022, with the introduction of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Pipelines and we removed the headaches associated with CPQ deployments by integrating configuration data into our metadata deployment flow.

ā€œItā€™s rare for a company to have values that you feel proud of, and that genuinely reflect how people work day-to-day. Itā€™s also rare for a company to be so transparent and open in its communication. And itā€™s even rarer for a company to have such good engineering practices that it can deliver updates to customers multiple times a day. So I think itā€™s especially unique that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų does all of these things and does them well.ā€

Andy Knox ā€” Development Manager, Cambridge

ā€œT³ó±š whole place is built on trust, which sounds nice on paper, but I feel 91³Ō¹ĻĶų genuinely delivers on that. Iā€™m trusted to work in whatever way I deem best for us and our customers, and it really is a pleasure to come to work everyday and be surrounded by such a smart, driven, interesting and funny group of people.ā€

Will Addison ā€” Executive Customer Success Manager, Belfast

2023

233 Gearcitizens putting the customer first

In 2023, we focused on making sure we continued to deliver an outstanding employee experience and making sure every team was fully set up for success. But that didnā€™t pause the growth of the app and our mission to put our customerā€™s needs at the heart of what we do. And all of our hard work was rewarded with 2 wins in the DevOps Excellence Awards!

Continuing our DevOps evangelism, we set up the DevOps Leaders programme which celebrates frontrunners in the Salesforce DevOps space and enables them to share their expertise and knowledge with the wider ecosystem. DevOps Launchpad also hit a key milestone, having reached more than 10,000 users!

ā€œMy 91³Ō¹ĻĶų colleagues are all a genuine bunch of people who are allowed to bring themselves to work and thereā€™s a culture that allows people to learn through doing ā€” youā€™re not expected to know everything and finding out new things is encouraged. Iā€™ve been able to step into a role that felt uncomfortable when I started it but have been given the space to grow and learn whilst doing it.ā€

Jodie Wilkinson ā€” Salesforce Partnerships Manager, Cambridge

ā€œEven in the short time since I joined, weā€™ve seen a number of new engineering teams be created so we can deliver more to our customers and Iā€™m now a development team lead which is a new role for me ā€” itā€™s great to have been supported by 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to take the next step of my career.ā€

John Dilley ā€” Development Team Lead, Cambridge

2024

300 Gearcitzens with more on the way

So here we are ā€” 300 strong and still growing! Though our core mission hasnā€™t changed: weā€™re still committed to delivering meaningful solutions that help Salesforce teams deliver quickly, accurately and without the stress. Data archiving is now in general availability; weā€™ve added long-term projects in Pipelines; and developed a visual way to deploy Flows.

But 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is more than just a Salesforce DevOps platform ā€” from day one, weā€™ve focused on building a culture thatā€™s open, collaborative, and human. Weā€™ve worked hard to make sure the same culture we had as a team of 7 is still thriving despite being 40x the size we were at the beginning. And with the Clayton team joining as Gearcitizens from across the globe, we canā€™t wait to see what 2025 has in store!

ā€œA few years ago I worked with 91³Ō¹ĻĶų alongside a client of mine ā€” at the time 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was celebrating reaching 150 employees. Having recently joined the company, itā€™s incredible to see the same tight-knit culture and sense of community has been maintained, even though the business has almost doubled.ā€

Maroof Abdul-Aziz | Scale Customer Success Manager, Cambridge

ā€œOne of the standout aspects of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s culture is the genuine sense of community among the team. From day one, I felt welcomed and valued, with colleagues always ready to offer help. This supportive environment has made settling in so much easier!ā€

Sophie Light-Wilkinson | Chief Marketing Officer, Cambridge

Ready to take your career to the next level?

While reaching 300 Gearcitizens has been a fantastic achievement, we have no plans to stop there! 91³Ō¹ĻĶų continues to grow and weā€™re always looking for talented people to continue our mission to deliver world-class DevOps solutions to the Salesforce ecosystem.

If youā€™re keen to get your teeth into the world of Salesforce DevOps, take a look through our current vacancies ā€” we might just have the perfect opportunity for you.

As we wrap up our 10-week internship at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, weā€™re taking a moment to reflect on whatā€™s been an incredible summer. Alongside four other interns, weā€™ve dived headfirst into the world of Salesforce DevOps, and weā€™re excited to share a snippet of our time here.

Who are we?

This summerā€™s intern crew was made up of two marketing interns (thatā€™s us!) and four software engineering interns. While we all had our own unique roles, one thing was consistent across the board: real projects, real impact, and a whole lot of learning!

So, what did we do?

Forget coffee runs and meaningless shadowing ā€” 91³Ō¹ĻĶų doesnā€™t do ā€˜busyworkā€™. From day one we were thrown into the mix, working on projects that really mattered. Whether it was brainstorming content ideas, crafting customer success stories, or coding features that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų users will actually interact with, we had our hands full with meaningful tasks.

Marketing Interns

As marketing interns, we interacted with a range of different teams, providing us with transferable skills that are sure will stay with us in future roles. We both had the opportunity to write lots of blog posts (like this one!) for the Content team, demystifying the world of Salesforce DevOps. Although neither of us knew much about this previously, we were given time to settle in, before swiftly learning the ins and outs of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų platform. And, seeing your name and work published on the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų website for the world to see is rewarding, to say the least!

We had the chance to learn from customers directly within the Customer Marketing team, listening in on calls and helping create case studies, giving us a firsthand look at how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų helps companies with their Salesforce needs. The Account Based Marketing team taught us how to run email campaigns that are custom-tailored to customer needs, while digital and demand gen got us brainstorming and creating ads for social media. What was unfamiliar at first, quickly became an exciting part of our day-to-day work.

With Salesforceā€™s annual Dreamforce event coming up, we also got the chance to get involved with event planning by ordering some fun swag to be handed out. So, if youā€™re heading to San Francisco this September, make sure to keep your eyes peeled!

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s approach to giving and receiving feedback has been instrumental throughout our learning process. Because everything has been so new, sharing our work with colleagues who have years of experience in this industry has been a great way to grow our skillset and look at our work through different perspectives. Weā€™ve also gotten the chance to review other peopleā€™s work which is definitely a little daunting at first, but you get the hang of it!

Software Engineering Interns

Our software engineering friends had a similar experience, but in a different area. They were split across various 91³Ō¹ĻĶų teams: MatĆ© focusing on archiving, Kai focusing on updating developer sandboxes, Qiaozhi focusing on backup, and Sunny focusing on profiles and permissions.

Each of them got to work on projects that directly improved the user experience. Whether it was adding new notification settings or developing features from scratch, they were making things happen from the get-go. Kai had his first development change live by the end of day two! He says: ā€œEverything you do ends up being useful, even from day oneā€. This sentiment is not unique to him, with all us interns relating to the satisfaction of your work making a difference from the very beginning.

Similarly to us in marketing, software engineering interns have also been able to witness their work shared publicly for everyone to see. MatĆ©ā€™s favourite aspect is the independence and trust that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų provides, meaning heā€™s been able to ship new features to real customers ā€” including the new archiving notification settings!

Support all the way

If thereā€™s one thing that stood out to us all, it was the support system here at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. From onboarding to our final week, we always had someone to turn to ā€” whether it was our mentors, buddies, or just the incredibly welcoming Slack channels. No question was too silly, and we were encouraged to share our ideas, even when we were still learning the ropes.

And then there were the social aspects. Within our first week, we were taken on a mini-golf and pizza night ā€” one to remember, for sure! It was the perfect icebreaker and a great way to bond with the other interns and Gearcitizens. We even had time to explore Cambridge, for those who hadnā€™t been here before, and enjoy the summer (and occasional rainy day) together! We were also lucky to be doing our internships at the same time as 91³Ō¹ĻĶų holds its annual summer partyā€¦ and thatā€™s definitely an event you donā€™t want to miss.

There is a real sense of community here at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and we had the chance to experience that for ourselves. They arenā€™t simply colleagues, but individuals who share with each other, care for one another, and respect each other deeply. None of us had seen a company quite like it, and for that within itself, we are grateful for the 10 weeks we had to enjoy the culture.

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely. Although itā€™s unlikely we would write anything besides yes, we truly mean it.

If youā€™re someone who thrives in a team environment, loves learning, and isnā€™t afraid to ask questions, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the place for you.

Just like Qiaozhi, weā€™ve all found this 91³Ō¹ĻĶų experience full of rich opportunities ā€” heā€™s ā€œreally enjoyed the constant learning, especially when it comes to exploring and understanding the codebase.ā€ Although we didnā€™t all get to grips with the codebase, we can all agree that there have been plenty of opportunities to expand our knowledge!

The experience has been nothing short of amazing, and weā€™ve all walked away with new skills, great memories, and a real sense of achievement.

Sunny sums it up perfectly: ā€œI would definitely recommend this internship! Everyone is super nice and friendly, and I absolutely LOVED the working environment.ā€

We couldnā€™t have said it better ourselves.

Career opportunities

Our 2025 internship applications open in the autumn so keep an eye out! Find out more about what itā€™s like to work at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and explore our current openings here.

What was your path to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI studied Computer Science at the University of Cambridge followed by a PhD specialising in the theory of secure programming languages. After this, I moved away from academia and started a career as a software engineer. I spent a little over 7 years at another engineering firm in Cambridge before making the move to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, where Iā€™ve been for just over 4 years.ā€

What made you decide to join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI started struggling to progress with my previous employer in terms of my personal development, and I wanted to focus on my desire to work with newer technologies. When I started to look for other opportunities, I was put in touch with 91³Ō¹ĻĶų via a third-party recruiter.

After going through the interview process, I felt like theyā€™d be a great company to work for ā€” the fast rate of growth 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was (and is) going through yields so many opportunities to progress.

Everyone I met during the interview process was very friendly, it made me feel like it was a very collaborative company and after working here this long, I can definitely say that it is!ā€

Can you tell us about your journey as an engineer at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI started at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų as a Software Engineer in one of the product teams. Initially I had a range of tasks to introduce me to various bits of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų infrastructure and codebase, before I moved on to a larger project to improve how we handle scheduled jobs. Around 9 months into the role I started line managing a new starter, and shortly after I split out to lead a separate engineering team.

From there, I had to learn to balance time spent on ā€œmyā€ projects, and time spent helping or providing support to members of my team or ensuring they have enough work in the pipeline to keep us busy without feeling overworked.

My interests lie more on the infrastructure/architecture side of software development, so over time I started to align my team more with that sort of work. Weā€™ve now moved away from product work in order to dedicate engineering time to improving the infrastructure and other non-product-facing features, without having product requirements competing for time.ā€

What has been the biggest challenge youā€™ve faced moving into your current role?

ā€œPrior to joining 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, I hadnā€™t had any experience managing another person. Although I feel thatā€™s the greatest challenge Iā€™ve had, there was a lot of support here in different forms to build those skills to be a great manager.

I had an internal mentor who already had line management experience, so they could really help with specific situations that cropped up. Also, all new managers at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų are put through an external training course to give us many tools that we can use for things like running effective 1-1s, helping our team members grow into their role, and tackling any trickier problems that might occur.

The constant feedback culture that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has was really beneficial here, too ā€” my team members gave me direct feedback about how things are going ā€” both positive and constructive ā€” to help me grow and support them even more.ā€

How have you grown as an engineer at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œOne of the hardest things as an engineer is the ability to decide whatā€™s the most important thing to be working on at any given time. From day one at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, there are times when you have to make a decision between, say, continuing with product work, or picking up an issue thatā€™s just been reported to us and working to fix that for the customer. Making that sort of decision isnā€™t always easy, and after moving into a Team Lead role, this became even harder as you now have to balance work for the whole team rather than just yourself. Having clear company, department, and team goals really helps to combat this, which 91³Ō¹ĻĶų does very well. It helps us prioritise whatā€™s the most important job to be done (JTBD) ā€” this is one of our 91³Ō¹ĻĶų values and is part of everything we do.

Itā€™s natural as you become a more senior developer that you become the ā€œexpertā€ in one or more areas of the codebase. The risk here is then youā€™re the ā€œgo-toā€ person for changes in that area, you then end up making those changes, and the cycle continues. Itā€™s important to recognise these situations and ensure that you collaborate with other developers to help spread the knowledge. Even if this would take more time in the short-term, in the long-term this leaves the team in a better position.

Encouraging collaboration between team members is another important skill that Iā€™ve learnt at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Itā€™s all too easy to say ā€œthis is a one-person taskā€ when working in the codebase. But by pairing or group-coding you get several benefits, such as: having more eyes on a single problem so more edge-cases can be spotted, and helping to teach more junior developers how to approach larger problems and break them down into manageable chunks. It also helps to foster a closer team if everyone can feel like theyā€™re contributing to the main task at hand.ā€

How do you engage your team?

ā€œOne of the most important things to be aware of as an engineer is knowing when to stop working on a given feature or change. No piece of code is ever perfect, but if the solution that covers 90% of useful cases is good enough, then we donā€™t need to worry about working harder to finish the remaining 10%. Instead, we can use that time to make another, more impactful change to the codebase. From day one, I encourage my whole team to speak up if they feel like weā€™re doing something ā€œfor the sake of itā€, or if they can think of an easier way to achieve the outcome weā€™re going for.

In addition, when we look at longer-term (quarterly) plans, I always put together a draft and then ask for feedback or suggestions, as there might be other important things that Iā€™m not aware of that we should do instead. Itā€™s very much a team effort to work out what to do next and how far we need to go with each piece of work.ā€

What skills do you think make a great Senior Engineer?

ā€œT³ó±šre are a few key skills that I think are really important for someone looking to be a great Senior Engineer:

• Knowing when something is ā€œdoneā€ ā€” as mentioned above, itā€™s all too easy to get bogged down in unnecessarily complex edge cases, and quite often a solution that tackles the main points is all thatā€™s required to provide value to the user.
• Become a ā€œgo-to personā€ in one or many key areas ā€” you should gain an in-depth knowledge about parts of the codebase, and as a Senior Engineer you should be approachable and provide time to help people with any questions they may have.
• Be happy to help mentor and/or coach more junior engineers ā€” whether this is helping to onboard new hires, or pairing with engineers on certain problems to show them how to tackle something or use a particular technology, rather than just doing it yourself.
• Know who youā€™re communicating with and tailor conversations appropriately ā€” when you have a significant amount of knowledge about a subject, it can be easy to assume people youā€™re talking to have similar levels of understanding. However, if youā€™re discussing how best to fix a problem, you may not want to go into really technical details if dealing with a customer who lacks knowledge about software architecture, for example ā€” they just want to see the end product. Conversely, when talking to another engineer you may wish to dig a lot deeper into what would be ā€œbestā€ from a technical perspective.ā€

Whatā€™s the best and worst part of your job?

ā€œI think the best part about being an Engineering Team Lead at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is being able to shape the role and your team into what best suits you and them. Each team, and each Team Lead, has different strengths and weaknesses, and by not having a set formula for each team, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų lets us figure out the most effective way to work.

For me in particular, Iā€™ve been able to alter the things my team works on to be more infrastructure-based (ensuring that each team member is happy with this along the way, too). In addition, I have a keen interest in product management, so Iā€™m starting to pick some of that up in relation to the technical/architectural backlog of work we have planned.

The most challenging/worst part of the job is ensuring time is balanced sensibly. Itā€™s important to ensure each individual person has enough support with their work and learning/development without feeling micromanaged, and also ensuring that I have enough time left to work on technical problems myself.ā€

What is one thing youā€™d like to learn, develop, or work on this year?

ā€œIā€™d like to get even more exposure to some of our infrastructure, especially around the Kubernetes setup we have and how everything integrates together. That knowledge has to be gained by ā€œdoingā€, though ā€” by being in an infrastructure team, thereā€™s plenty of opportunity to work with the nitty gritty details about 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and learn at the same time.ā€

Whatā€™s the best piece of advice youā€™ve received?

ā€œTake time to bring others on board with what youā€™re doing rather than forcing ideas upon them. Itā€™s much easier to work towards a common goal if everyone is on board with it, rather than just saying ā€œthis is what weā€™re doingā€, even if the outcome is the same either way. The little bit of extra time to bring people around to your way of thinking is invaluable, and at times they may spot holes in your plans that you hadnā€™t seen in the first instance.ā€

Merging changes in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų

91³Ō¹ĻĶų is a DevOps platform for Salesforce. A core component of our solution is helping users maintain Salesforce metadata within a source control repository, just like any other source code.

As a software engineer, youā€™re probably familiar with using the command to merge changes from a branch youā€™ve been working on with some long-lived branch.

Our customers targeting the Salesforce platform need to do the same, so within 91³Ō¹ĻĶų we need to perform the same kinds of operations. However, instead of more traditional source code files, weā€™re often dealing with XML formatted metadata.

If youā€™re interested in how this looks in practice, then take a look at our on resolving merge conflicts.

Our ā€œsemantic mergeā€ solution leverages our knowledge of the structure of Salesforce metadata, so our users see outcomes beyond whatā€™s possible with the standard git merge. With our semantic merge, users can:

• Automatically resolve conflicts that git merge wouldnā€™t be able to handle.
• Identify cases where merging changes will result in Salesforce validation failures further down the line. These failures wouldnā€™t be noticed by git merge, but semantic merge will highlight them as conflicts for the user to resolve manually.

Itā€™s important to emphasise that semantic merge isnā€™t making any decisions about which changes should be ignored. Weā€™re simply using our knowledge of Salesforce metadata to identify cases where there isnā€™t actually a conflict that needs to be resolved.

Semantic merge process

In order to explain how this works and the improvements we introduced, we first need to define a few terms:

• ā€” A type of merge that uses 3 versions of the same file from different points in source control:
  • Left & Right ā€” The versions of the file with changes to be merged. Typically, one will contain ā€˜yourā€™ changes, the other contains changes from the long-lived branch.
  • Ancestor ā€” The version of the file before the changes in left or right were made.
• Diff ā€” A specific difference that has been identified between two versions of the file. For example, adding or removing a line of text. There are 4 main types of diff:
  • Insert ā€” Adding an XML element.
  • Delete ā€” Removing an XML element.
  • Move ā€” Moving an XML element.
  • Content change ā€” Changing the inner value of an XML element.

The first part of merging is to identify the diffs between ancestor vs left, and ancestor vs right. Semantic merge does this in a 2-step process for each pair of files being compared:

1. XML matcher ā€” Try to match up XML elements we see in the 2 files being compared.
2. Diff generator ā€” Figure out all the individual diffs that are needed to change the source file into the destination file.

In an ideal world, we could then simply apply these diffs to a copy of the ancestor to generate a merged version of the file containing changes from both left and right.

In reality, we often find that diffs will conflict with each other ā€” i.e. make different changes to the same part of the file ā€” so we need to identify any diffs that might be conflicting and then try to resolve them.

If weā€™re able to resolve them all, then we can generate the final merged version of the file. If not, weā€™ll have to let the user know about the conflicts weā€™ve found so that they can resolve them manually.

State of semantic merge

The first iteration of our semantic merge solution worked well for users. However, at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we take an iterative approach to feature development and we felt there was still room for improvement.

We decided to focus on 2 main areas:

1. Adding more automated testing to try and identify weak spots. In particular, we already used tests with randomly generated XML () to find issues with the diff generation logic and wanted to expand this to conflict identification and resolution.
2. Reviewing customer-provided repository metadata to see what common conflicts we might be able to resolve automatically.

Our stats showed that approximately 35% of PRs had merge conflicts. Our goal for this project was to reduce this by a quarter, to around 26% of PRs.

But there were still a couple of issues we identified. Hereā€™s how we fixed them.

Missing deletions

In this scenario, we were testing the conflict resolvers by randomly generating a ā€˜sourceā€™ XML document and randomly applying some mutations to create a ā€˜targetā€™ document.

We could then generate diffs and pass them through the conflict identification and resolution logic, to verify we were getting the expected output.

When we took a source document:

<seasonal>
    <sink>
        <seed>
            <queue>NDGUNNORQVVEVME</queue> 
            <seed> 
                <queue>IVPXNHGKBXLDTMK</queue> 
                <copper>GZQDVQVKQWBVABC</copper>
            </seed> 
        </seed> 
        <seed /> 
    </sink> 
</seasonal>

And its expected output:

<seasonal>
    <sink>
        <seed>
            <seed> 
                <copper>GZQDVQVKQWBVABC</copper>
            </seed> 
        </seed>  
    </sink> 
    <sink>
        <seed>
            <queue>NDGUNNORQVVEVME</queue> 
        </seed> 
    </sink>
</seasonal>

We were finding an unexpected element in the output:

<seasonal>
    <sink>
        <seed>
            <seed>
                <queue>IVPXNHGKBXLDTMK</queue>  <ā€”ā€” unexpected element
                <copper>GZQDVQVKQWBVABC</copper>
            </seed>
        </seed>
    </sink>
    <sink>
        <seed>
            <queue>NDGUNNORQVVEVME</queue>
        </seed>
    </sink>
</seasonal>

Looking into the details of what happened, we could see that 4 diffs were generated. These are shown below using XPath to identify elements.

A. Insert new <sink> containing the expected <seed> and <queue> elements after the end of the existing <sink> element. B. Move seasonal/sink/seed[0]/seed to within seasonal/sink/seed[1] C. Delete seasonal/sink/seed[0] D. Delete seasonal/sink/seed[0]/seed/queue

The logic will identify that Diffs B, C and D might be in conflict because they act on some of the same elements. Specifically, this generated two sets of conflicts:

• B+C ā€” because the moved element is within the deleted element.
• C+D ā€” because D is happening to a child of the element deleted by C.

B and D are not considered in conflict because no matter which order you apply the diffs in, you get the same result.

The first conflict can be resolved by executing B first, then C. For the second conflict, we can ignore D because itā€™s nested within C and would be deleted anyway.

However, the combination of these two resolutions means that the element deleted by D was no longer within the element deleted by C.

The solution is to always perform deletions, even when they are nested like this. If the element really has already been deleted by the time we get to it, then we ignore it at that point instead.

XML matcher mixups

In some fairly complex 3-way merge scenarios generated by our fuzz tests, the system was finding conflicts when we didnā€™t expect there to be any.

When we looked at the diffs that were generated, they didnā€™t quite match what we would have expected. This wasnā€™t unusual in itself. The XML matcher can often match elements in ways that seem nonsensical to human eyes, leading to counterintuitive diffs. However, as long as the generated diffs lead to the correct result, it doesnā€™t really matter.

In these new scenarios, we found that it did matter because these counterintuitive diffs were conflicting, whereas the diffs generated from a more intuitive matching of XML elements didnā€™t conflict.

The primary difficulty is that the XML matcher is very performance sensitive. Itā€™s the most significant contributor to the overall time taken by the semantic merge driver, so we had tightly optimised and tuned the XML matcher to consider as little as possible, in order to make an accurate match. This was what was causing the counterintuitive matches we were seeing.

In the end, we addressed this by adding some extra checks to also consider the next/previous siblings of an element when deciding which element to match it to. For performance reasons, these checks only happen if the element has multiple potential matches.

Results

In total, we identified at least 12 different scenarios where we could improve on the existing behaviour. Addressing these reduced the percentage of PRs with conflicts by around 20%. Not quite our 25% target, but still a massive improvement for users.

We also reduced the size and complexity of the diffs that users have to deal with when conflicts do occur.

Future work

These improvements are fantastic, but we believe we can do better and are excited to improve even further in future.

Partial resolution

One thing weā€™re already looking at is partial resolution.

This change to the underlying systems will allow us to automatically resolve more diffs than we currently do, by accepting some of the diffs involved in a conflict as they are while leaving others as conflicts thatā€™ll require manual input to resolve. This wonā€™t help with reducing the total numbers of conflicts we see, but will reduce the size and complexity of the diffs that users need to manually resolve when conflicts occur.

At present, we donā€™t actually use partial resolution very much, but there are many situations where we might be able to apply it. More work is needed to confirm the best way to identify these scenarios and make sure that we handle them in the correct way.

Targeted investigations

During this work we also improved our logging, to give more context about what types of conflicts weā€™re seeing and what metadata types they are occurring in. Using this intelligence, we should be able to focus our efforts on the biggest real-world problem areas.

Want to hear more from engineering?

If you want to find out more about what our engineering team gets up to, take a look at our careers blog! And, if youā€™re interested in joining the engineering team at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, take a look at our open job roles.

There were 9 of us in total working across marketing, engineering, and product, coming from a mix of different universities; from right here in Cambridge to as far as the University of Waterloo in Canada. As our internship has come to a close, we thought weā€™d have a final catchup to reflect on our time at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and share our experiences!

What does the internship programme look like at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

The intern programme at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų involves 10 weeks working in your chosen area, whether thatā€™s engineering, UX, or marketing. Youā€™re able to take complete ownership of key projects, as well as picking up smaller tasks across the department, which is a great way of broadening your experience. What makes 91³Ō¹ĻĶų stand out is that the work delivered had a real, measurable impact on the business. Itā€™s also really flexible - you can work at your own pace and steer your tasks in a direction that suits your interests.

What support do interns have at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

Itā€™s a really well-thought-out system; you get assigned a buddy, a mentor, and a manager from day one. In your first week youā€™ll have daily chats with your manager, and this is a great time to ask questions about your work and the company in general. Theyā€™ll work with you to tailor your internship experience so you get the most out of it.

Your mentor is usually someone who has a lot of experience in the area your project focuses on. Itā€™s nice to have another port-of-call in the same office as you ā€” if you ever need help or donā€™t understand something theyā€™re a good person to go to.

ā€œMy mentor focused on giving me tasks that are a good representation of industry level software engineering so I would get the most out of my time here.ā€ ā€” Locky

91³Ō¹ĻĶų provides plenty of support outside of these key people. In marketing, the team is fairly small, and you get a lot of support from the marketing Slack channel. In engineering, youā€™re put into teams of around 4ā€“7 people, so you can ask your team members or your team lead for help.

And then you have a buddy! Your buddy will work in a different department, so talking to them is a fun way of learning more about what other teams get up to.

ā€œI had weekly catch ups with my buddy, we chatted about things like our hobbies, and even which type of potato is the best!ā€ ā€” Vysh

Whatā€™s office life like?

We worked from the Cambridge HQ, and the office is super friendly and relaxed. Itā€™s really easy to just tap someone on the shoulder to ask them a question (or message them on Slack), and there really are no stupid questions! With everyone being so welcoming, it doesnā€™t take long to feel like youā€™re really a part of the team.

Slack is the main virtual space where everyone spends time. It means remote employees and those in the office all have a direct line of communication. Itā€™s a really collaborative place to share work, ask for feedback and celebrate each othersā€™ wins. Itā€™s also very sociable - youā€™ll find yourself sharing pictures of your pets, debating about the best type of pie, or displaying your strong emoji game!

People often go outside to kick a football or throw a frisbee around after lunch, or on Cambridgeā€™s more rainy days, you can find people playing chess or mario kart indoors.

Outside of work, what fun things have you been up to?

The People team organised our first intern social, where we played a friendly game of mini golf. It was a great way of getting to know the other interns and meeting some new people from other teams in the office. Weā€™re lucky to all get along really well, and have spent a lot of time together after work and on weekends exploring Cambridge. Our internship also coincided with ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s annual summer party, an afternoon of food, drink and activities in the sunshine.

Have you seen the impact youā€™ve made during the internship?

Yes! In marketing, weā€™ve contributed to both long and short-term projects, so sometimes the impact of your work is immediate, and other times youā€™ve got to wait to measure the results of your project. Either way, you know that the work is a valued part of the teamā€™s strategy.

A big difference between 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and some other internships, is that all your tasks (big or small) are things that really need to be done. People are honest about how your work fits into the work of the wider team, and no-one is making up dummy tasks to keep you occupied!

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s feedback culture is great. Every piece of work is posted into the marketing Slack channel where everyone (including us, the interns, on our first day) has an equal opportunity to comment, review, and share their thoughts. Youā€™re actively encouraged to contribute, and it doesnā€™t matter how long the other person has worked at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, or how experienced they are - your opinion still matters!

In engineering, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has a fairly quick release cycle so the changes you make usually only take about a day to get moved into the production version of the app. Youā€™re treated like a proper employee so you work on features that have direct value to customers. ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s incredible feedback culture means your code is always thoroughly reviewed, so you pick up on best practices and technical decision-making very quickly.

ā€œYou can pick up all kinds of work ā€” everyone you work with is flexible and receptive to your specific interests so you can try anything and everything youā€™re curious about.ā€ ā€” Arthur

What would your advice be to other interns?

Relax, be yourself, and just have fun! Make the most of the opportunity, and think about what you want to get out of it, as well as what value you can provide to the company. Donā€™t be afraid to shape the internship to fit what youā€™re interested in. Youā€™re given the opportunity to work on basically any part of the app, or any part of the teamā€™s marketing strategy, so step out of your comfort zone and ask to be involved in as many different areas of work as you can so you get a taste for everything.

And forget about what you see on TV. No one is going to make you run around getting coffee - not at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų anyway! Ask questions, be curious, and just get involved!

Sound good? Apply to join the team!

All of the interns agreed that we canā€™t recommend 91³Ō¹ĻĶų enough! The internship challenged us every single day, but was equally as rewarding. If 91³Ō¹ĻĶų sounds like your kind of company, visit the careers page to see our current job openings, and check back at the end of 2023 for the summer 2024 internship opportunities!

Iā€™ve worked as a designer across a variety of sectors, from market research and consultancy to ecommerce and SaaS. Iā€™ve always loved working with others to build engaging and valuable products and services for customers.ā€

What made you join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œOne thing that really stood out to me was how customer centric the company is, especially when talking to various people throughout the recruitment process. It really highlighted that everyone, across the business, is close to our customers and focused on helping them succeed. All of this helps deliver a great customer experience, which is really important to me.ā€

How would you describe the culture in the Product team?

ā€œFirst and foremost, I would say we are extremely collaborative. We sit between lots of other areas within the company working on multiple projects. Everyone in the team has their own ā€˜superpowerā€™ in a certain area, which helps with our collaborative nature and means we can use our teamā€™s strengths in order to improve our platform efficiently.ā€

How do your teams like to work?

ā€œWeā€™re involved with the product managerā€™s early discovery work, helping them research opportunities and customer pain points. We work on ideas for solutions iteratively, validating them with people who use the platform. One of the most satisfying aspects of our work is collaborating directly with the engineering teams, and overseeing our ideas through to becoming real features on the platform.ā€

What are you most excited about as your team continues to grow?

ā€œT³ó±š teamā€™s grown really quickly, which has been super exciting! Now that weā€™re an established team, weā€™re focusing on continuously improving and driving consistency with how we deliver work. There are new and compelling opportunities within the business, as we are attracting a wider and more diverse customer base ā€” weā€™re working to understand this variety of user needs and how we can help them succeed with our platform.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œT³ó±š values and the culture of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų are really special. Thereā€™s a real sense that everyone is focused on bringing value for our customers, and we all work together to achieve it. It sounds slightly cheesy, but I think this is one of the only places Iā€™ve worked where everyone lives the values day in day out, and you can see the impact on the way we work here because of that.ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€œI ran the Great North run when I was 18 and ran it 18 years later when I was 36. I havenā€™t decided whether Iā€™ll run it when Iā€™m 54ā€¦ā€

What 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Slack channel do you hang out in most?

ā€œI divide my time fairly squarely between #spotify, #animalympics and #parenting. Which is pretty much a summary of my life outside of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų!ā€

What made you join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œKevin (our CEO and Co-Founder) sent me a Facebook message and asked me if I was interested in joining 91³Ō¹ĻĶų (I didnā€™t have a LinkedIn profile at the time).

The reason I said ā€œyesā€ was because I knew 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was a great company. I was working in the same building as 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and I could see how close-knit the company was. The fact that the team ate lunch together and went for walks together at lunch really showed me that. I also have such a huge amount of respect for Kevin and Matt (CPO & Co-Founder). Theyā€™re both developers and I knew confidently that they understood developers, the problems, and how to solve them. It helps so much that they get that!ā€

How would you describe the culture in the Engineering team?

ā€œT³ó±š team is super smart! I often hear developers joining 91³Ō¹ĻĶų say that they thought they were a good developer, and upon joining 91³Ō¹ĻĶų they were humbled from working with such talented folks.

I love that we have people aligned with our company values. Our developers want to be close to our users and arenā€™t scared to have conversations with other departments. They really care about collaboration and have a desire to get things done.ā€

How do your teams like to work?

ā€œT³ó±šreā€™s real variety across all of the teams. Thereā€™s not one 91³Ō¹ĻĶų way of working. We really value that as weā€™re all unique! The things we do have in common are collaborating on work, wanting to help our customers, and wanting to get things done.ā€

What are you most excited about as your team continues to grow?

ā€œHow the team matures as we grow. Theyā€™ll have more capacity to be more successful working on solving problems which will delight our users. Iā€™m also super excited about our observability team. Thisā€™ll give us more confidence in what weā€™re doing and the code weā€™re releasing.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œWhen you join a lot of companies you donā€™t get much autonomy or opportunity to make a huge impact. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų thereā€™s a lack of red tape, meaning you get to have a huge impact from day one. You also have the freedom to choose the areas you want to impact. Everyone from our interns to our senior engineers ship releases within their first week!ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€œFor my first job, I had to dress up as a dinosaur: a T-Rex!ā€

What attracted you to Software Engineering?

ā€œMy journey began during my time at Reading University where I was studying Economics (bear with me on that one)! A few of my housemates were studying Computer Science degrees and I thought it was cool seeing all the projects theyā€™d built from scratch.

After completing my Economics degree, my partnerā€™s company relocated to Cambridge. So, knowing no one there and having visited the place once or twice, we packed up and started a new adventure (and luckily so, as I later discovered Cambridge was the home of Silicon Fen).

Shortly after we moved, my partner gifted me a Raspberry Pi and a book called ā€œPython for the Absolute Beginnerā€ (which holds a place in my heart and is in view as Iā€™m writing this sentence). That was the real turning point for me, and what kick started my obsession with becoming a software engineer.

Soon after, I decided to complete an online Python course to test the waters and see if coding was really as much fun as it seemed. Well, yes, it was! So, I enrolled in a Masterā€™s degree in Computer Science at Hertfordshire University, which I completed with top grades, and Iā€™ve not looked back since!ā€

Whatā€™s been your journey to a Development Team Lead at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI started life at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų just over 4 years ago as a software engineer. During my time here, Iā€™ve worked in all the major areas of the code base and collaborated with every department. Whilst Iā€™ve always loved the engineering side, I found that my biggest strength and the one that came most naturally to me was working with people.

I loved bouncing ideas around with the various teams at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų ā€” sales, marketing, customer success, product, and UX folks. So, when I was offered the role as team lead I really couldnā€™t have asked for a better fit.ā€

What do you like most about the tech industry, and what tech intrigues you?

ā€œDuring my time in the industry Iā€™ve witnessed the shift to cloud computing, AI going mainstream, and the spread of IoT (plus a bunch of others too)! Itā€™s been so fun seeing these developments, the speed at which they take place, and how these developments end up finding application across various domains. Whether itā€™s learning how Formula 1 teams are using AI and machine learning to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of cars, or how satellites (such as the NOAA-20) are combating illegal deforestation ā€” if someone is applying tech to a modern problem, Iā€™m interested!ā€

A day in the life

ā€œI kickstart my day by doing 30 minutes of learning and development. Iā€™m currently doing a React course ā€” itā€™s fully funded by 91³Ō¹ĻĶų as part of our annual learning and development budget. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų not only provides us the financial opportunity to enrol on courses about anything we think necessary, but places an emphasis on learning and development too, which means youā€™ll be encouraged to find the time to commit to a course.

Next, I check Slack and reply to any urgent messages or teammate queries. Iā€™ll then make a plan for the day and decide which tasks Iā€™d like to accomplish, before jumping into some code reviews (a personal favourite). Once those are completed, Iā€™ll start on my list, typically tackling the most challenging item whilst Iā€™m freshest. This might involve driving key projects forward, collaborating with the product team, or assisting with customer investigations.

Later in the morning, we might have a team meeting (we run those every other day, with a longer session on Fridays). These discussions keep everyone aligned and provide another place for folks to ask for help. After the team meeting, I typically take my lunch break ā€” since Iā€™m working from home, I give my wife a well earned break and entertain our two young children while trying to eat some lunch!

In the afternoon, I check again for code reviews and continue working through my to-do list. Occasionally, there are watercooler chats (these are ā€˜coffee breaksā€™ with a random group in the company) or a technical roadmap session, which I try and actively participate in ā€” I enjoy hearing the various improvements other engineers bring forward, whether itā€™s a case for UI testing, or the introduction of a static code analyser, or the development of a UI component library.

As the day winds down, I try to wrap up some admin tasks (emails etc.) so I can start the next day with a clean slate. Working from home demands a lot of self discipline so by 5pm I try to turn my laptop off, and begin my long commuteā€¦ downstairs!ā€

What makes engineering at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų different from other companies youā€™ve worked with?

ā€œFor me itā€™s the combination of trust, amazing people, and the growth opportunities. Thereā€™s a healthy collaborative culture here that I havenā€™t seen so much of in my previous companies.

I try to contribute to a number of different projects and 91³Ō¹ĻĶų gives me no end of opportunities to grow! Whether itā€™s directly participating in the technical roadmap, helping out with customer issues, or getting more involved in the product side of things ā€” thereā€™s never a dull moment as thereā€™s just so much variation. Add to all that the emphasis on wellbeing, learning and development ā€” 91³Ō¹ĻĶų offers the perfect recipe for finding a happy balance between work and family, and being able to continuously grow.ā€

What sort of projects have you worked on so far?

ā€œT³ó±š team I was in (which is the same team Iā€™m now leading) developed the Pipelines product. For me, itā€™s the perfect blend of technical and product challenges. Some of the most interesting technical challenges I worked on were helping the team come up with a brand new git branching model that would enable customers to effectively manage multiple Salesforce orgs. We ultimately developed the which enabled us to integrate forward and back propagations of pull requests, whilst supporting a consistent user experience across the 9 different version control systems.

The other fun technical challenge was being the first team to heavily adopt react, redux and TS! This has presented a series of technical and product/UX challenges, which Iā€™ve absolutely loved working on!ā€

What attracted you to join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œT³ó±š first thing that attracted me was the prospect of working on a DevOps tool, which is interesting in itself and an area that I had very little experience in. However, it was the conversations with the team and the positive feedback that truly convinced me.

Over four years later, Iā€™m still loving life at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and couldnā€™t ask for better companions. I can honestly say that each day is a rewarding experience. It wouldnā€™t be right not to mention how entirely supportive 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has been over the years on a personal level too. Be that during the pandemic, family sickness, when Iā€™ve wanted to pursue a course, or the birth of my babies ā€” 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has always had my back.ā€

And, finally, the burning question: tabs or spaces?

ā€œConsistency is key! Maybe Iā€™m in the minority here, but Iā€™ve never had a strong opinion on either ā€” just donā€™t leave a trailing whitespace!ā€

In a weird coincidence, three quarters of my previous companies are 91³Ō¹ĻĶų customers, so maybe I was always destined to end up here!ā€

What made you join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI knew that I wanted to join a company to build something new to develop an innovative, modern, and thriving customer success team in an exciting and emerging industry. I also knew I wanted to join a business that reflected my values of compassion, inclusivity, and ambition.

From my very first conversation with Kevin (our CEO), it was clear that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was a very special place. That expectation was set at a new, higher level with everyone that I met, every layer deeper that I got to dig, every question I had answered. I was so excited to join and be part of the journey of building the next phase of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. With so many of the foundations already here, I knew that I had a great responsibility to do justice to what had come before.

Itā€™s the single best professional decision Iā€™ve ever made.ā€

How would you describe the culture in the Customer Success team?

ā€œT³ó±šreā€™s a great spirit in the team, itā€™s the most proactive, positive, and resourceful Iā€™ve ever worked in. Iā€™m really proud that weā€™ve managed to maintain that spirit as weā€™ve evolved into a hybrid team spread across two continents.

Weā€™re working with customers who are delivering meaningful change in their businesses, and this means there are inevitably some high pressure moments. So weā€™re really trying to build resilience in our approach, and in ourselves ā€” knowing when we need support, when we need to step back, and when we need to improve a process is really important. The fact that we have a team that works so well together, helps each other out, and consistently delivers is born out of that resilience and is a real strength, I think.ā€

How do your teams like to work?

ā€œOn the whole, weā€™re pretty collaborative and like to give folks the flexibility to work in a way that allows them to bring their best selves to work. Weā€™re really connected to other teams across the business ā€” in fact, every team at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is ā€” and we know that by collaborating with our colleagues in all departments weā€™re able to deliver whatā€™s best for our customers.

We really try to keep internal meetings to a minimum, to give folks the time and space to do great work. When we do have them, we keep them short, prioritise key initiatives, and review regular sessions to make sure theyā€™re still relevant.

Feedback is big for us, because we know how fast our space is moving and we know that we need to consistently progress, learn, and develop. So, we try to facilitate opportunities for that to happen: both organically and formally.

Our motto is: To build the best team, to empower the most successful customers in our industry. We aim to keep that thought at the forefront of everything weā€™re doing.ā€

What are you most excited about for your team?

ā€Ąįā€™m most excited about how weā€™re continuing to develop innovative ways of making customers successful ā€” things like a self-service portal, virtual events, community outreach, and partnerships.

The change in our industry is constant, and offers opportunities to deliver really important updates for customers; so the speed weā€™re developing the product always inspires me. Weā€™re really plugged into the wider Salesforce community, which is dynamic and ever-evolving, and so Iā€™m excited to see what comes from that in the next little while.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œIf you lean towards wanting to build things, want to be a part of a company thatā€™s transforming a really interesting market, and if youā€™ve got a desire to work in a place where no two months are the same, and where your colleagues are collectively the kindest, smartest, most hard-working youā€™ve ever know, then Iā€™d really encourage you to apply.

From my teamā€™s perspective, our customers are a technical crowd, and we seek to really stand alongside them in building solutions ā€” which means we need to delve into those technical spaces with them. That doesnā€™t mean you have to have an engineering or development background though, just that youā€™re interested in those deep conversations and technical strategy.ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€Ąįā€™m a pretty open book but I guess one thing is that back in 2013 I got down to the final 25 for a TV show, The Island with Bear Grylls. It would have seen me spend a month with 11 other people on a remote Pacific island filmed for everyoneā€™s viewing pleasure. I didnā€™t make the cut, and instead joined my first start-up, and I guess the rest is history.ā€

Which 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Slack channel do you hang out in most?

ā€œI helped set up #pride and more recently have been lurking in #parenting, #gardening and #gigs.ā€

Our internal DevOps team does a great job supporting our platform, and has been working on these kinds of problems for some time. The new observability team was set up to increase our capability in this area. Folks from different areas of engineering joined the team, and they continue to rotate in and out of the team to gain skills, and contribute to this important service. Read on to learn more about what observability means at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and the impact it has.

What do we mean by observability at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

For us, observability centres around the ability to understand the inner workings of our system solely based on observing and interrogating it with external tools. That means we want to be able to understand the state of our application at any time, even if itā€™s in a state that we hadnā€™t previously predicted. Ideally, that would mean at any given time we donā€™t need to ship new custom code to diagnose an issue that weā€™re already seeing in the application.

Whatā€™s the goal of the observability team at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

The goal of the team is to increase our capability to operate our systems at scale, while handling internal code updates and external changes to the environment our code operates in (based on new customers or customers changing their usage patterns).

We roughly view the four main challenges to keeping a system stable under the force of internal and external changes as:

• Detecting thereā€™s a problem with the system
• Triaging the problem and assigning an owner
• Figuring out the root cause of the issue
• Fixing the problem

Asking why the problem happened, and how we can make sure it doesnā€™t happen again, is an explicit part of our write-up of each incident. For us, itā€™s part of ā€œfixing the problemā€, and itā€™s the way we do engineering at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, but we realize thatā€™s maybe not the way every company does it!

Our success at all four challenges can be improved by enhancing our observability. And so, a large part of the work the team has started doing is focussing on and improving our observability, therefore, aiming to improve our effectiveness when coping with those four problems.

We also have a remit to tackle all of the sociotechnical issues that arise when weā€™re tackling these problems. After all, thereā€™s no point building a great observability tools if nobody knows how to use it! So, we engage with other teams to make sure weā€™re building the right things, help them get up to speed with it, share knowledge, and implement any feedback from using the platform.

How does the team work?

The team is made up of a mixture of temporary and permanent roles. This allows us to look long term and think about what the team might be doing in a year or two, and adapt as the business continues to grow.

Engineers from other teams do a three to six month secondment in the observability team, which is a great way to encourage learning and development in new areas for the rest of the engineering team.

Developers who join this team bring new ideas and experiences from their current roles, and take the new skills theyā€™ve learned back to their teams to make even more of a difference. Working in this collaborative transparent way is one of the things that makes ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s engineering culture unique, and encourages professional development in the engineering team.

Any engineer can ask to join the team ā€“ itā€™s an explicit goal to help spread some of the knowledge from the observability team, so you definitely donā€™t need to be an expert already. However, we do have to make sure thereā€™s a balance on the team at any one time, and across the rest of the engineering teams.

What projects have the observability team worked on?

One of the big projects weā€™ve worked on is to start using OpenTelemetry tracing to improve our observability. Weā€™ve started using a tool called Honeycomb to complement our existing observability stack, and this has already led to lots of small improvements in our operational capacity. For example:

• Weā€™re quickly able to identify that a specific code change had led to a massive increase in latency on one of our key endpoints.
• Weā€™ve been able to apply a number of small optimisations that allows the app to fundamentally operate faster.
• We now have more confidence around our use of queues, and where the slow points are.

The team has also been able to look over some of our database usage, and put on better observability tooling and techniques to improve how we look at, and optimise our database usage.

All these projects help us achieve our overall goal, to help the whole team have more confidence in their understanding of the system. Over time, this will enable us to not only make small fixes like the ones weā€™re working on now, but recover faster from larger failures, and move faster with new functionality because itā€™ll be easier to verify at each stage of rollout that things are behaving as expected.

Whatā€™s it like working on the observability team?

[Julian Wreford]: ā€œIā€™ve really enjoyed working on the operational team, itā€™s been a bit of a change from my prior experience doing just software development, but Iā€™ve learnt so much by having the opportunity to really focus on the operational aspects behind running our application. Itā€™s a cool mixture of ad-hoc response to immediate issues, and longer term planning around how we improve our general approach to running the application, and Iā€™ve really enjoyed that mixture.ā€

[Oli Lane]: ā€œFounding this team has been a real learning experience for us all ā€“ which is great. Having a team focused just on operational and observability concerns has given us the space to learn much more about how best to instrument, operate, and ultimately improve the services we run, and thatā€™s been really fulfilling. From tackling issues, to paying down technical debt, to empowering other teams to get more insights into how the code they write runs in production, itā€™s easy to see the impact of the work weā€™re doing. And I often donā€™t know what Iā€™ll be working on when I get in each morning, which definitely keeps things fresh!ā€

Want to join the observability team?

Then why not take a look at our engineering roles, and you could be part of making a real difference at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and for our users.

What made you join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œIā€™d just finished my masters and had the choice between staying in law or moving into something a bit different, more exciting and engaging.

I was intrigued by the fast growing nature of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, it was clearly run by smart, enthusiastic people. The idea of joining a company which offers such an effective product in an untapped market sold me on the move. A career in sales in a start-up environment really appealed to me, having the opportunity to be directly involved in scaling the business, every day is impactful to making the organisation bigger and better.ā€

How would you describe the culture in the Sales team?

ā€œCompetitive collaboration. The goal is for everyone to succeed, and the market is so big it allows everyone to overachieve and be successful without stepping on anyoneā€™s toes. Everyone celebrates each otherā€™s wins as much as their ownā€“but weā€™ve got a bit of friendly competition going on as youā€™d expect!ā€

How do your teams like to work?

ā€œWeā€™ve got a great culture of autonomy, everyone is trusted to do their job and do it well. We come together to collaborate, share and bounce ideas off each other when weā€™re stuck. We share every possible learning in a tight feedback cycle and itā€™s hugely impactful.ā€

What are you most excited about for your team?

ā€œT³ó±šre are so many new roles on the horizon for us, as we transition from a small team to a fully developed sales organisation over the next 12-18 months.

Thereā€™s the chance to pick what direction the current team members want to go into, such as focusing on new business, existing business or even getting into specialisms. Iā€™m looking forward to seeing the team progress and develop.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œT³ó±š people you work with, not just in the sales team. The interactions youā€™ll have across the company enable you to learn so much every single day. The focus on learning and collaboration sets us up to perform at our best all the time. The product and engineering teams take feedback directly from sales, so every conversation makes a difference.ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€œIā€™ve got 3 motorbikes and I plan to tour Europe on one this summer.ā€

What 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Slack channel do you hang out in most?

ā€œI post regularly in #motor-things about the travels Iā€™ve done on the motorbikes and itā€™s interesting to compare rides with other motor enthusiasts at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. I also enjoy snooping at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų folks latest renovation work in the #diy channel.ā€

We think the way we do engineering is pretty unique ā€” but wouldnā€™t every tech company say that? To prove it, we take a dive into what makes ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s engineering team different. Donā€™t just take our word for it ā€” keep reading to hear directly what some of the engineering folks think!

Our users are our main focus

Getting value into the hands of customers quickly is at the heart of everything we care about. Staying close to our customers to discover their real needs keeps us focused, and we work pragmatically to deliver value to them fast and regularly.

[Eamonn Boyle]: ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the most collaborative place Iā€™ve ever worked. Not just within engineering, but across the whole company. Thereā€™s a real sense of common drive to deliver the features that our customers need.ā€

[Matt Guy]: ā€œAt 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we have full ownership of the features we build. We can touch and impact every single layer of the tech stack if we want to, and have regular contact with customers to gain vital context and feedback to help us build the right solutions. This transparency and frequent contact with our customers helps direct our product development and gives us the chance to collaborate with plenty of other teams at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, which is fantastic!ā€

[Dave Rant]: ā€œT³ó±š primary way of measuring ourselves is the success of our customers. So, by interacting with customers and directly understanding their pain points, rather than that information filtering through lots of people, means when we ship something based on a request or some feedback from a customer, we can immediately see if it solves their problem. If it does, we can see the impact it makes right away. If we need to work on that solution, we can get direct feedback to pivot quickly to solve their need.ā€

You see the difference your code makes

Just like Dave said, engineers at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų get to see first-hand the difference their work makes to our users. Unlike some companies, our engineers are involved in the whole process of improving our solution, whether itā€™s getting feedback directly from customers and understanding their pain points, or coming up with a solution, creating it and releasing it, to getting feedback on how itā€™s impacted our users.

[Catherine Bacon]: ā€œEach day is really varied. You might be working on a large feature, fixing a bug, releasing the app, speaking to a user, helping our customer success or sales team with a technical issue, or answering questions. I really like this way of working, as youā€™re not just a coding monkey stuck in a room! You see what youā€™re working on being used in real time, making a difference to users and helping their release processes. Itā€™s very satisfying to work on something that genuinely makes our usersā€™ job easier.ā€

Close collaboration

Our engineering team is focused on delivering value for our customers in a pragmatic way, while maintaining our high standards. Weā€™ve built a great culture of trust, transparency, collaboration, and feedback, where engineers have the autonomy to succeed and are trusted to do good work. This means folks can try new things and challenge themselves to deliver their best work.

[Mark Allan]: ā€œItā€™s extremely collaborative. Even though the engineering department is split up into several small teams, youā€™ll find yourself working with people from other teams and other departments very regularly. From reviewing PRs, to diagnosing issues, to working on tech debt, to jumping on calls with customers ā€” as a company, we spend a lot of time listening to and talking with our customers!ā€

[Dave Rant]: ā€œOur engineering culture is the foundation of everything we do at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Weā€™re a company that was started by engineers, so the whole company tends to live and breathe a set of values that software engineers will find very familiar. We focus on giving our engineers the most enjoyable and productive experience possible. That involves giving them the best tools for the job, and the freedom to experiment with solutions to and get very quick feedback on the work theyā€™re doing directly from our customers.ā€

The freedom to grow

There are no rigid pre-set career paths at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. You have the flexibility and trust to build on your skills and experience to reach your personal goals. Our collaborative team environment means folks are happy to share their experiences with teammates to help each other learn and grow.

[Matt Guy]: ā€œAt 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, youā€™re surrounded by intelligent people that care about the quality of the work they produce and the toolset weā€™re building for our customers. The engineers here empower each otherā€™s learning and encourage pragmatism in the technical decisions and developments we carry out. Ultimately, at the heart of our engineering team is a group of fantastic people that I love to work with every single day.ā€

[Julian Wreford]: ā€œT³ó±š thing I value most about 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the culture of trust and growth that exists. From starting as a junior developer, I was trusted to investigate and solve lots of different problems, but I always knew there was support if I found a problem too challenging or just needed a push in the right direction. This has meant that Iā€™ve grown in a variety of areas I wouldnā€™t expect, as Iā€™ve been encouraged to try things outside of my comfort zone and given the tools and support to succeed. I wouldnā€™t be the developer I am now without the opportunities for growth and support that Iā€™ve had in my time at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.ā€

[Richard Jones]: ā€œBeing part of a company where youā€™re given equal parts freedom to explore your technological interests, and support to help you fully realise your ideas, is really refreshing. No area of the company is off-limits and I feel comfortable approaching problems that are new to me, knowing that Iā€™d have teammates around to offer advice when I need it.ā€

Do you want to be part of the team?

If you want to be part of the unique engineering culture at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and help us continue to grow, take a look at our open engineering roles.

What made you join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI knew all the great ways 91³Ō¹ĻĶų worked from a really trusted source, and Iā€™ve also seen how that way of working pays off in the success that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has seen and how quickly itā€™s grown. So, what attracted me to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was itā€™s a great balance between working the way I like to work (no politics, no bureaucracy, focus on the customer and getting value out the door quickly) but with the support of a larger, successful business with great people working together with a common goal.ā€

How would you describe the culture in the Engineering team?

ā€œOur culture is a mix of things. I work with some really talented people and Iā€™d say 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the most collaborative place Iā€™ve ever worked. Trust and safety play a big part in making that team effective and the level of collaboration possible. Thereā€™s a big emphasis in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų on honesty, transparency and working in the open and we see that from the top down.

Thereā€™s also very little politics or bureaucracy ā€” good ideas are championed wherever they come from and we try to evolve the way we do things continuously to cut out waste.ā€

How do your teams like to work?

ā€œWe follow some core principles and then each team might vary slightly with how they work. Day to day our team works really closely together (though Iā€™m a bit more detached from the daily coding these days). Every day the team will jump on ad-hoc huddles on Slack to pair up on work or bash around ideas. Thinking about the next smallest increment is a big part of daily and weekly planning in the team. Everyone works full-stack so they may be in our .NET backend (C# 11) or on our frontend, where all the new code is using TypeScript and React.ā€

What are you most excited about for your team?

ā€Ąįā€™m really excited for Belfast to become a larger and larger part of engineering in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Weā€™ve grown a lot in the first year of the office, and Iā€™m looking forward to spinning up some more product teams here as we grow. Weā€™re also into continuous improvement and everyone can suggest changes to how we work ā€” so Iā€™m keen to see how the way we work evolves with some current initiatives around releasing more frequently and improving quality.ā€

Why should someone join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œYou should join if you want to work somewhere that you regularly see your work make a difference to customers, and if you want to cut away excess process, bureaucracy, politics and egos. You should also join if you want to work with really talented people from many disciplines who are all working together with a common goal.ā€

Tell us something we probably donā€™t know about you.

ā€œIā€™ve dived with manta rays, turtles, sharks and wrecks but canā€™t really swim properly.ā€

What 91³Ō¹ĻĶų Slack channel do you hang out in most?

ā€Ąįā€™m a fan of #movies-and-tv! This channel and I have a love-hate relationship. Iā€™m a bit of a movie and tv fanboy and so love getting recommendations or a bit of banter about the latest shows, but I have to be careful too as I hate spoilers.ā€

I feel very lucky to work somewhere where thereā€™s such a big and supportive community of visible LGBTQ+ folks. While I love the informal socials weā€™ve been having, something I take great heart in is how supportive and kind people are when sharing LGBTQ+ related world news in our #pride Slack channel, whether itā€™s good or bad. We asked three of the folks from that community at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to share their thoughts, as we reflect on Pride month.

How can a workplace ensure itā€™s a safe, encouraging, and supportive environment for LGBTQ+ people?

[Jen]: At the moment, the world can be a very frightening place for LGBTQ+ individuals ā€” so, any workplace that acknowledges that is already taking a big step in the right direction. One area that sets workplaces apart is mental health support. Having access to someone to talk to is enormous and can be incredibly impactful, no matter where you are in your journey. There can also be a big divide between how folks show up to an open and inclusive workplace, and how they might be forced to hide themselves in their home/private life. Being able to support someone in that situation is life-changing.

[Vivian]: Having specific workplace policies in place to protect queer employees from discrimination is vital; it can be difficult to come out at work if youā€™re unsure how your co-workers will react, and knowing that thereā€™s something specific you can point to if thereā€™s any difficulty brings huge peace of mind.

[Anonymous]: One is definitely mental health support ā€” something like a buddy system or free counselling are both really useful and beneficial things, especially when things get tough (itā€™s been shown that LGBTQ+ people are significantly more likely to need counselling or advice). However, Iā€™d say the main thing (for me, at least) is LGBTQ+ folk being seen and treated as normal, rather than as something ā€˜specialā€™ or ā€˜uncommonā€™. Being able to coexist and feel safe and welcome as myself is a great feeling, compared to previous experiences in my life (i.e. school) ā€” and is definitely something Iā€™m not taking for granted!

How did you celebrate Pride this year?

[Jen]: I didnā€™t do loads for Pride this year ā€” Iā€™m a bit past the age of partying till the sun goes down. But I did bring some friends and their young son to the local Cambridge Pride. I really enjoyed the fact that he could just absorb the event and it was a safe space for children. It definitely helps to set the foundation for knowing at a young age we live in a wonderfully diverse world.

[Vivian]: I donā€™t normally do much in terms of in-person Pride events as Iā€™m not good with large crowds, but I have been bringing the Pride spirit to smaller social groups and other communities that Iā€™m a part of ā€” I want everyone to feel like the spaces Iā€™m in are safe to be out and proud in.

[Anonymous]: By attending my first Pride event this year ā€” London Pride! It was a great event to experience, and one to remind myself that Iā€™m part of a bigger community and not alone!

What does Pride mean to you?

[Jen]: I think it means a month of reflection for me. Not just celebrating what has changed, but how can I be a leader and an aspirational figure for those around me to keep actioning change? This year, itā€™s important for me to understand what I can do to be a better ally to the transgender community.

[Vivian]: There are two different things I think Pride should be about. Pride means queer joy ā€” showing other queer people that being queer means being yourself authentically and that itā€™s a source of happiness, and not something to be afraid of. Itā€™s about showing people who may still be in the closet and struggling to come out that theyā€™re not alone and that we stand stronger together. Pride is also a protest ā€” thereā€™s still plenty of discrimination and bigotry out there, especially towards the trans community in the past few years. Pride is a shout of defiance and a rallying point for the queer community to come together and fight!

[Anonymous]: Pride to me is feeling accepted and being a part of something bigger. Everyone has challenges in life, and one of my major ones has been acceptance (both internally and externally) of who I am and how I should express this. Pride is a good reminder for me to realise that I have the personal freedom and choice to express myself. However, itā€™s also a reminder that other people in other countries with stricter LGBTQ+ laws donā€™t have this luxury, and that visibility is important to advance rights for all LGBTQ+ people.

Do you have a favourite Pride memory?

[Jen]: LOL maybe having the bravery to dye my hair sparkly silver for London Pride. For me it felt pretty out there!

[Vivian]: Not specifically a Pride event, but any time someone feels comfortable coming out to me or tells me that my presence has helped them feel more confident in being proud of who they are. For me, coming out was a terrifying experience, and I want to make it less terrifying for everyone else!

[Anonymous]: Similar to Jenā€™s, I painted my nails rainbow colours for London Pride which was good fun!

What is one message you wish you could share with your younger self?

[Vivian]: I was at school during the tail end of Section 28, and the oppressive school environment it created had lingering effects on me through adulthood. Iā€™d tell my younger self: ā€œYour feelings are normal and nothing to be ashamed of; itā€™s okay to accept yourself and your friends will accept you, too ā€” and even among just your close friends, youā€™re not alone.ā€

[Jen]: Life is full of surprises and the biggest one is that youā€™re never a fully-formed human. Donā€™t worry if how you feel and think at one stage of your life will be the same years down the line. Own yourself and be a badass. Itā€™s what means the journey will be fun to the most important person: yourself.

[Anonymous]: Agree with Vivian here. Iā€™d add: ā€œDonā€™t judge yourself solely based on the reactions of others, you are valid!ā€

Company culture is king

Culture is a word that often gets thrown around but it can be difficult to quantify. Despite this, itā€™s clear that itā€™s important to tech talent. The report showed that after compensation, candidates are most attracted to a role and organisation by the overall culture (15.1%) and mission (13.1%).

Looking at why tech talent choose to stay at their current company, we asked ā€œwhat do you love about your current company and what makes you stay?ā€ The top reason, given in 45.4% of responses, was company culture.

The unique culture of every organisation is made up of all the little things done to empower their teams. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, our culture is underpinned by trust, collaboration, self-development, teamwork, feedback, and a focus on solving our customersā€™ problems. These core attributes are part of who we are at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and encourage our people to be their best, both as individuals and within our team.

Remote as a ā€˜perkā€™ is no longer an option

The new world of hybrid and remote working has enabled a generation of developers to work on their own terms and in conditions that are more suitable for their working lives. When asked ā€œWhat aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?ā€ remote working was ranked highest by technical talent ā€” above tech stack, location, and benefits.

When asked about their work preferences, an overwhelming majority of respondents signalled their preferred way to work is fully remote.

91³Ō¹ĻĶų provides working styles including fully remote and hybrid roles, and we make sure weā€™re transparent with the needs of the roles and how these work to ensure everyone is on the same page from the start. Our flexibility ensures that each team member is set up for success.

Lack of learning and development leads to frustration

Itā€™s clear tech talent wants the opportunity to continually learn and develop in their role and the company. When asked ā€œWhat are some of your biggest work-related challenges and frustrations?ā€, lack of learning and development was ranked almost top, just behind salary in the report.

Learning and development is highly supported and encouraged at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, but is very much driven by the individual rather than being constrained by a predetermined structure. We support folks with various initiatives, including an annual learning and development budget of Ā£1,500, mentoring opportunities, management training, personal development plans, and peer learning.

Maintaining a good work-life balance

Over three quarters of survey respondents said theyā€™re unhappy with their roles and have looked for a new job in the past six months. Of those folks whoā€™ve looked for a new role, the main reason they stayed in their current role was clearly work-life balance. A good work-life balance is enough to retain tech talent, even if theyā€™re interested in greater compensation in other areas.

Work/life balance means something different to all of us. Whether itā€™s working from home on the days that suit you, or working true flexible hours to suit your life and how you work best, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų supports it. We trust our team when it comes to when they work to deliver the work they need to do.

Info on the report

The data for the report was gathered and analysed by Hackajob, using figures from their Engineering 2023 Survey.

They received over 1,000 responses from technical talent to understand what attracts and retains them as well as what aspects of their roles are most important to them. Technical talent includes, but is not limited to, Software Developers, Engineers, Data Scientists, QA Testers, Data Analysts, UI/UX designers, Product Managers and more.

Read the report

To access the full report visit the Hackajob website .

What attracted you to Software Engineering?

ā€œWhen I was in primary school, my dad worked at whatā€™s now Manchester Metropolitan University as a Sociology lecturer with an interest in computers, and in lieu of childcare he would take me in with him and let me play games on the mainframe terminals in the room next to his office. One day I asked if there was a way to make them easier (or ā€œcheatā€, if you must) and so he showed me how to edit the BASIC code. Once I realised you could not only make them easier, but actually make them do entirely new things, I was hooked.ā€

Whatā€™s been your journey to a Principal Software Engineer?

ā€œTo cut a rather long story short, I hacked away on home computers from when I was a wee lad until I got a job in tech. Then I spent over 10 years in that job working for a computer manufacturer doing everything from BIOS code and operating system patches to building their first website (HTML 1.0!), and after that moved on to freelancing for 20 years, working on all sorts of projects big and small.

Eventually I decided to ditch the stress of freelancing, so I started looking into companies where I could do a ā€œnormalā€ job. After an amount of research, I found that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų matched my values best, so I applied, passed a very efficient and stress-free interview process and accepted a position. Iā€™d never had a job title during the freelance years of course, but it turns out that over the years Iā€™d accumulated a broad enough experience to fit the Principal Software Engineer role.ā€

What do you like most about the tech industry, and what tech intrigues you?

ā€œT³ó±š best thing about the tech industry (and possibly also the worst) is that it never stops changing, so youā€™re always learning and you never have the chance to get bored.

Obviously Iā€™m as interested as everyone else to see where AI goes from here, particularly from an ethical point of view, but Iā€™m also intrigued to see if WASI containers can deliver on their promise to bring more agility, flexibility and security to application hosting.ā€

A day in the life

ā€œWell, if we take yesterday as an example, I spent the morning working on a couple of PRs, one to add some user-facing auditing to the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų application, and another tweaking Terraform scripts for our Kubernetes cluster. We also had our daily stand-up meeting (our team prefers daily stand-ups, but each team has their own way of working).

Because Iā€™d chosen to work in the office that day, at lunchtime I went to the cafĆ© for a free and very tasty lunch ā€” the Cambridge office is very jealous of the Belfast lunches ;)

In the afternoon, I had a meeting with engineers from several other teams to discuss our UI component library, a social ā€œwatercoolerā€ call with a couple of other randomly chosen people from across the company, a knowledge-sharing presentation from one of the other engineers, and a call with a customer to discuss a new feature weā€™ve been building.

In between this stuff, I did some PR reviewing, made some plans based off the component library discussion, and wrote up tickets for the next phase of development for the main feature Iā€™m working on at the moment.ā€

What makes engineering at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų different from other companies youā€™ve worked with?

ā€œItā€™s extremely collaborative. Even though the engineering department is split up into several small teams, youā€™ll find yourself working with people from other teams and other departments very regularly. From reviewing PRs, to diagnosing issues, to working on tech debt, to jumping on calls with customers ā€” as a company we spend a lot of time listening to and talking with our customers!ā€

What sort of projects have you worked on so far?

ā€œMy team is working on what could be loosely described as enterprise features, so Iā€™ve been mostly dealing with security-related areas such as SSO, team permissions, safe sharing of resources and the like. But 91³Ō¹ĻĶų being 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, Iā€™ve also been mucking in on DevOps, frontend architecture and other such things outside the teamā€™s immediate remit.ā€

What attracted you to join 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œT³ó±š people. I bumped into the Head of Engineering, Luke, socially and we got on very well, and the Belfast office lead, Eamonn, is a well-known good egg, so I was fairly confident itā€™d be a good place to work. Fortunately it turns out I was right, everyoneā€™s lovely (albeit disconcertingly smart).ā€

And, finally, the burning question: tabs or spaces?

ā€œTabs, for accessibility reasons. But if youā€™re not using an editor that can easily switch between them then you should probably do something about that.ā€

Back for a second year

This was the second year in a row 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has supported the Cambridge Half Marathon. Itā€™s a great way for us as a team to be involved in a local event that supports health and wellbeing ā€” something thatā€™s really important to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Seeing folks embrace the event in different ways created a real buzz: from all the hard work and training they had to dedicate in order to run in the event, to coming along to cheer on their team members on the day.

Sarah Dewsbury, Head of People, commented: ā€œBuilding on the great feedback we had from the team off the back of last yearā€™s event, we knew we wanted to continue to partner with the Cambridge Half Marathon on this iconic event.

Itā€™s been great seeing the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team spirit come to life even more this year. Some of the team taking on the challenge were new to running, and were inspired by colleagues from last year to take part. All the runners pulled together to encourage each other with group training runs and sharing running tips on our internal slack channel.ā€

Giving back to local charities

As part of our sponsorship of the event, we were able to support two local charities: fuel poverty charity and wellbeing charity .

These charities are doing amazing work in our local area to support people at a challenging time for many. Weā€™re proud we were able to support them through supplying running places to raise money for their fantastic causes.

The journey to the Cambridge Half

We had over 35 Gearcitizens, families, and friends taking part in the race this year. We loved hearing their motivations for taking on the challenge and to see their journeys to the big day!

Hereā€™s a snapshot of some of our runner stories:

Valerio, Team Lead, Customer Support & Documentation, took on the Cambridge Half last year for the first time, and came back for a second year to take on the challenge of getting a PB!

ā€œUntil 91³Ō¹ĻĶų started sponsoring the half marathon, it never crossed my mind to run this sort of distance. Iā€™m really happy to have been nudged to try something like this. The atmosphere in the city was incredible and I didnā€™t expect it to be this enjoyable.ā€

Gemma, Events Coordinator, used the Cambridge Half as her return to running event to spur her on for future challenges.

ā€œT³ó±š Cambridge Half Marathon is an iconic event and Iā€™m glad that it was my ā€˜return to runningā€™ event!

It was such an uplifting experience running through the historic streets of Cambridge lined with supporters cheering all the runners on. It was great sharing the day with other runners who made the Cambridge Half Marathon such a special event. It eased the pain!ā€

Ahtif, Software Engineer, took on the challenge for a second year in a row.

ā€œThis was my second time running the Cambridge Half and I have to say itā€™s been an incredible experience both times. I originally signed up after some encouragement from my colleagues as a way to motivate me to get into running, but I enjoyed it so much that I plan on running it every year now.

The support at the event is amazing, it honestly feels like half of the city comes out to show their support for the runners, which I really appreciate, especially during the last few miles. The fact that so much of us at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų take part is really cool since it means I get to run alongside my colleagues as well.

I was quite happy with my time this year. I was a bit injured going into it so I wasnā€™t expecting to beat my previous time but I got a lot closer than I expected!ā€

Liz, Events Marketer, is no newbie to the Cambridge Half Marathon as sheā€™s run every one apart from two since they started!

ā€œCambridge Half is a date in any local runners calendar as one of the largest races within the region. The build up to the event adds to the magnitude of the occasion, with friends and colleagues all talking about the event. On the day it feels like a community of runners on Midsummer Common.

The support at the start is excellent, however the support you receive on the course is inspiring. Grantchester should get its own mention, being the halfway point, and the crowds really know how to rally around the runners with their enthusiasm spurring you on towards Trumpington Road.ā€

Join us!

If youā€™re curious about team 91³Ō¹ĻĶų and what itā€™s like to work for us, take a look at our careers page and the exciting roles weā€™ve got open!

We spoke to Eamonn Boyle, who heads up the engineering team in Belfast, to share what the journey has been like so far, and to shed some light on the exciting plans to come for the expanding Belfast engineering team.

So Eamonn, the office has been open since April ā€” how are things going?

Wait, wait, waitā€¦ have we only been open since April? So much has happened since then.

Things are going really well. Weā€™ve got our Belfast Engineering team up and running at River House in High Street and come January weā€™ll have 7 in the office. ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s doing so well as a company and weā€™re continuing to grow, with big plans for next year. So, weā€™re hoping to more than double the Belfast team next year.

How do the Belfast team work alongside the wider engineering team based in the Cambridge HQ?

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s Engineering department is organised into small teams of 5-7 people. As Engineering has grown over the years, teams have organically formed and Belfast is no different. We currently have one team but will add more as we grow. Each team has a set of projects to focus on each quarter but we all collectively own the product.

Together as a larger engineering team we ship releases daily, pair on difficult tasks, swarm on issues, share knowledge and are continuously improving our practices and processes. In short, here in Belfast weā€™re interacting with the wider team continuously.

I should highlight that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is the most collaborative place Iā€™ve ever worked. Not just within Engineering but across the whole company. Thereā€™s a real sense of common drive to deliver the features that our customers need. All communication is on Slack and there is a very open and honest ethos within 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. We have weekly company wide meetings where each department gives an update and we also have ā€˜donutsā€™ (15 minute social calls) with random people across the company each week. All of this helps keep the Belfast crew connected to the rest of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Our company is based in Cambridge, Chicago and we have folks working remotely from home ā€” so Belfast is one part of the larger picture.

We also all got together for our big summer party ā€” the company flew us and our families over to Cambridge for a great dayā€™s craic.

But we do have better food in the Belfast office! 91³Ō¹ĻĶų pays for lunch and the sandwiches in River House Coffee are class and better than the canteen food over in Cambridge.

How has the team changed and grown in Belfast?

As the Belfast team grew in its first 4 months each new member, including myself, seconded into one of the existing Engineering teams. We worked in different product areas, such as the core comparison engine, pipelines and data backup. Everyone was so welcoming and helped us upskill, and since then weā€™ve had a steady stream of visitors from the Cambridge office over to stay with us, which has been great! Once we gained enough knowledge, we formed our own Belfast team in September.

Our frontend stack is React and TypeScript and we have a lot of experience of this within the Belfast team, which has been useful. The backend is .NET and though some of the folks were coming from a Java or Kotlin background, this hasnā€™t been a problem and the transition for them has been very smooth. The team is working really well together and part of this last quarter has been figuring out how we want to work. We have common ideas of what good looks like within Engineering, but each team also has some autonomy to try different things.

Weā€™ve got 5 engineers in the office now but weā€™re only limited by how quickly we can find great engineers. Iā€™d double that number tomorrow if I could. As part of that weā€™re trying to get the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų name known around Belfast. We were the Diamond sponsor at this yearā€™s Northern Ireland Developer Conference and myself and Mark Allan were chuffed to have the opportunity to present. It was great to be out at an in-person event and speak to so many great folks ā€” but a lot of people hadnā€™t heard of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų before so weā€™ve still more work to do.

Can you share what projects the team have been involved in?

For the last quarter the team has been working on features supporting the Enterprise market. This is a strategic focus of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, delighting our Enterprise customers as much as our SMB users. Itā€™s great that the Belfast team is contributing in this area. Weā€™ve been adding security features that are important to our larger Enterprise customers such as Veolia, Tripadvisor, Johnson & Johnson and Intercom. Weā€™ve added the ability for Enterprise teams to restrict how their users can log in, which domains they can login from, restricting what Salesforce orgs and VCS repositories can be connected to their workflows and controlling access to app features.

We just finished a spike on new ways to login into the app and weā€™ll be building that out at the start of next year.

Weā€™ve also helped out at events ā€” I was in San Francisco for Dreamforce in September and Ross was in Seattle for DevOps Dreaminā€™. As I mentioned, we also sponsored and ran a stand at NIDC and sponsored the local .NET meetup in Belfast.

With the company continuing to grow, how will this impact the Belfast team going forward?

As we continue to hire in the new year weā€™ll organically grow and then split into smaller teams in Belfast, similar to the structure in the Cambridge office. Weā€™ve also recently had one of the engineers in Cambridge join the Belfast team, and weā€™ve got a new starter whoā€™s working remotely from England joining our Belfast team in January. Weā€™ll probably continue to do this, as we donā€™t want to create a separation between us and the Cambridge HQ.

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s product roadmap is pretty ambitious and we need more great engineers to help realise it. Iā€™ve been working in Belfast for almost 20 years now, so I know the wealth of talent we have here. My hope is that in 2023 91³Ō¹ĻĶų becomes the home to some of the best that Belfast has to offer.

If you want to find out more about what 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has to offer and if itā€™s the right place for you, take a look at our careers site, and the we have in Belfast.

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, learning and development isnā€™t just something that sits in a siloed area, itā€™s part of who we are. Learning and development shows up through one of our core values: ā€˜embracing discomfortā€™. This encourages all 91³Ō¹ĻĶųters to grow through taking new opportunities available to them. It also shows up in our safe environment, where we help each other improve, grow, and learn every day through our strong feedback culture and our focus on collaboration.

On that note, hereā€™s a snapshot of some of the initiatives we run at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų ā€” to give you a flavour of what award-winning learning and development looks like to us.

Feedback culture

We have a strong focus on continuous, constructive feedback at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, because we know it helps us all reach our full potential. Feedback routinely comes through each employeesā€™ 1:1 with their line manager, which we encourage to be direct, in the moment, and peer-to-peer. People in all roles at the company take part in 360Ā° feedback ā€” so much so, itā€™s become a natural part of how we work. It allows everyone to have the opportunity to share their knowledge and advice.

There are no painful end of year meetings, as is the case in many companies, where employees only have one chance each year to get feedback on how theyā€™re performing and how to improve. Instead, we encourage monthly check-ins where folks can talk to their managers about their development and ambitions. This makes sure weā€™re spotting opportunities for people to work in new areas, or take part in training that will help them to develop in the areas they want to focus.

Quarterly check-ins

At the end of every quarter each team carries out a quarterly review of what theyā€™ve achieved and what theyā€™d like to do for the next quarter. This is then presented to the wider company, giving a great opportunity for input and questions from people outside of their team, including the executive team. This allows 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to continuously share expertise across the company, encourage improvement in each quarter, and ensure we all learn about the great initiatives happening across every team.

Personal development

We introduced personal development plans for folks to use if they find them useful. These are a tool to help people self-reflect and guide their own development. They provide an opportunity to work with their managers to identify both their skills and any gaps, as well as set goals and create a plan of how to achieve them. This works really well at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, where the work and growth is fast paced, enabling us to support development around the exciting new projects and roles that are continually popping up.

We provide a personal learning budget of Ā£1,500 ($2,000 for US folks) per team member per year thatā€™s dedicated to fund their development. This can be used for anything to help a team member develop and on the type of content that suits them most, including courses, events, books, and online learning. Thereā€™s also team specific training in different areas, including sales training for people at any level, as well as product training for everyone in the company and a product management training programme for our new product management function.

Internship programme

We know what a good internship looks like ā€” lots of our own developers started out as interns. We strongly believe that internships should be about doing real work and making a real difference from day one, not watching other people do things. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, our interns are fully fledged members of the team and work on real features, projects, and work ā€” all interns impact the business from the start.

Supporting aspiring managers

For folks that aspire to be a people manager at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, they have the opportunity to develop in their current role to allow them to build on their skills and make sure itā€™s something they enjoy doing by testing the waters. We offer opportunities to mentor new starters, manage interns, and get involved with interviewing across the business, which is what helps build the skills needed to become great managers.

Management development

Everyone in a management role takes part in formal leadership training, to allow them to better understand their role and themselves as managers. We have been focusing on delivering leadership training for those new to the role, but our training doesnā€™t stop there. We believe there should be continuous learning and development for all our managers, encouraging them to develop the key skills to be able to support and influence others effectively, and to develop, coach and provide effective feedback to their team.

We offer further developmental training to managers, specifically covering how to have powerful conversations, and the difference between directive and non-directive approaches. This encourages our managers to best support their team, largely through building their coaching skills to help them to have more developmental conversations with their team members.

Off the back of this training, it was great to see new managers set up their own self-led peer group sessions, in which they share their challenges, discuss their own practices and continue to learn from each other. This has given them support outside their immediate team and manager, and means they learn and grow together.

Support across all teams

Learning and development truly is at the heart of our organisation. Weā€™re constantly looking for ways to support everyone across 91³Ō¹ĻĶų with their development. Folks of all levels are always looking for opportunities to improve and grow, and how to help their teammates do the same. Having this proactive focus on learning and development across the company means we grow together to deliver the best work we can, which is really important to help us deliver the most value for our customers.

Weā€™re really proud of the learning and development culture weā€™ve built at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų so far ā€” and like everything we do, weā€™ll keep looking for ways to improve and iterate as we grow as a company, to make sure weā€™re doing everything we can to develop and grow our team too.

• 4th Best Mid-Sized Company to work for in the UK
• 4th Best Tech Company to work for in the UK
• 3rd Best Company to work for in the East of England
• Learning and Development Special Award

Results from the Best Companies survey

Since the rankings are determined by employeesā€™ responses to the Best Companies survey, these awards reflect how we all feel about working at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Best Companies are more interested in hearing from employees than employers ā€” they believe (like us!) that happy and engaged employees are the key to successful companies.

Letā€™s dive into the key areas that were highlighted in our survey feedback, to show what lifeā€™s like at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

A healthy work-life balance

Everyone wants to have a healthy work-life balance, and 91³Ō¹ĻĶų tries to make that as easy as possible. The Best Companies survey shows that the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team are ā€˜happy with the balance between my work and home lifeā€™. True flexible working, automatically approved annual leave, being trusted to manage your own time, and lots of wellbeing support programmes are just some of the ways we encourage our team to find a healthy work-life balance.

Confidence in the company

Another area highlighted was how many of the team are ā€˜feeling confident in the leadership skills of the senior management teamā€™. This confidence is a reflection of the work Kevin Boyle, our CEO, and the rest of the senior leadership team have done over the past year to build on the amazing success 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has already achieved. Theyā€™ve created a clear roadmap of where weā€™re headed, which means everyone can see how they can help to make that happen.

We enjoy our work

While we all take our work seriously at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we donā€™t take ourselves too seriously. The survey revealed that many of us think our teams are ā€˜fun to work withā€™. Since we work together so collaboratively, thereā€™s always lots of communication going on and these chats always feature a good dose of humour. Itā€™s one thing to be able to have fun with your colleagues, but quite another to have fun working with them day in, day out. Outside of our daily work, we also host events like our monthly Drink & Learn, which is a lighthearted opportunity to learn about otherā€™s work, and regular company meals and parties.

Supporting our team

When it comes to supporting our team, many folks across the company agreed that ā€˜my manager ensures that I have the resources I need to do my jobā€™. This was highlighted by the special Learning and Development award we received for our outstanding work to support our team with learning and development. This is something weā€™re particularly proud of as one of our core values ā€” 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, team, self ā€” is focused on helping each other to improve.

Weā€™re always looking to improve

Weā€™re delighted to have received these Best Companies awards, and even more so that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų really is a great company to work for, with a bunch of people who are great to work with. At the same time, we donā€™t want to be complacent. We can always do better and find new ways of helping everyone across the company to thrive. As the company grows even more, we want to develop in all areas ā€” including the engagement and wellbeing of the whole team.

Join us!

If youā€™re looking to join a fast-growing tech company with loads of exciting opportunities, take a look at our careers site ā€” weā€™re hiring across all teams. And feel free to use the live chat on this page to find out more about what itā€™s like to work at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų!

My team lead explained that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has worked hard to develop and maintain a unique company culture despite growing rapidly, and that the best way to experience that was in person. So I packed my bags, grabbed my US <> UK dictionary, and took flight across the pond to better understand Salesforce DevOps and this lively startup in the heart of ā€œSilicon Fen.ā€

Every tech company pays lip service to ā€˜cultureā€™; some may even have a beer fridge and a ping pong table. But at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, it quickly became obvious how integral this culture was in guiding every decision and interaction. The values that define ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s culture are well-documented, but I want to share some of my immediate impressions that confirmed my decision to join the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team.

Trust and transparency

Trust is the starting point of every interaction in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. If youā€™ve ever been frustrated by vague corporate roadmaps, ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s company-wide policy of transparency can come as a bit of a shock. From day one, I was exposed to financials, intellectual property, and documentation. The transparency around such important information led me to the core of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s culture: trust.

After seeing this for myself, it explained why the interview process for a 91³Ō¹ĻĶų role is so thorough. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų will assess not only a candidateā€™s technical ability and company cultural fit, but also discuss with previous employers the best way to work with you as an individual.

Communication and feedback

91³Ō¹ĻĶų doesnā€™t just build a DevOps product; the DevOps model of thinking about continuous improvement is embedded in the culture as well. One part of an effective DevOps process is receiving and giving feedback. Feedback enables us to seamlessly iterate on our methods and encourages the best ideas.

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, leaders right across the organization are open to feedback in several ways, either anonymously or openly. Of course, feedback is a two-way street: as much as youā€™re encouraged to provide it, youā€™ll also need to be receptive to receiving it. Fortunately, the trust and open communication fostered at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų makes it easy to exchange even challenging ideas about the ways we can improve and better serve our customers.

Work and life

The only ā€˜talking toā€™ Iā€™ve received so far at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was working overtime in the office during my first week. It was explained to me that while initiative was appreciated, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is about longevity. Itā€™s about going far even if that comes at the expense of going fast.

One of the ways of promoting longevity is nurturing the elusive work/life balance. It might seem intuitive east of the Atlantic, but as an American working for a European company, the idea of not using people merely as tools to accomplish a job was a novel one. That workplace conditioning seems likely to be a major contributor to the burnout thatā€™s all too common in the US tech sector.

A final point on culture thatā€™s crucial to mention: 91³Ō¹ĻĶų loves to party! As maintaining trust and open communication is vital, team social outings are not just a distraction from our work, but integral to the team building necessary to complete it. Thereā€™s a lot at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to be celebrated, and these folks hardly need an excuse!

#squadgoals

Now that you know a little bit about the company culture, Iā€™ll explain how the customer support team fits in.

Customer support is a great entry point to the technology industry; as a result, it attracts people from a wide variety of backgrounds. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we have musicians, athletes, bartenders, food scientists, and artists, to name just a few. Some may be seasoned tech veterans, while others are budding enthusiasts.

This motley crew is aligned by a few unifying principles, however! Theyā€™re all creative, problem-solving ninjas who are passionate about curating an amazing experience for users. Weā€™re the folks who will be checking in periodically to see how itā€™s going, or to get you unstuck in time to meet a deadline. Just as our product has been designed to lighten the load and make work more enjoyable for Salesforce professionals, customer support is the embodiment of those principles, providing that uniquely human touch in your inbox or in-app chat.

And better yet, weā€™re always on the lookout for more people to bring a new perspective to what we do!

If youā€™re the kind of person thatā€™s curious about developing technology, relishes a new challenge, and enjoys working closely with others, be sure to reach out. Drop us a line on our website live chat where myself or one of my colleagues would be happy to answer any questions you might have. You can also check out any current vacancies across the company. Hope to hear from you!

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, transparency is part of who we are. Rather than us just telling you what engineering at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is like, weā€™ve got two of our talented engineers, Catherine Bacon and Matt Guy, on hand to give their perspectives.

Q: Whatā€™s it like being an engineer at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

A: Catherine

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų is a supportive and collaborative place to work as an engineer. Youā€™re surrounded by people who want to do a good job and are eager and willing to talk to you.

Each day is really varied. You might be working on a large feature, fixing a bug, releasing the app, speaking to a user, helping our customer success or sales team with a technical issue, or answering questions. I really like this way of working, as youā€™re not just a coding monkey stuck in a room! You see what youā€™re working on being used in real time, making a difference to users and helping their release processes.ā€

A: Matt

ā€œAt 91³Ō¹ĻĶų youā€™re surrounded by intelligent people that care about the quality of the work they produce and the toolset weā€™re building for our customers. The engineers here empower each otherā€™s learning and encourage pragmatism in the technical decisions and developments we carry out. Ultimately, at the heart of our engineering team is a group of fantastic people that I love to work with every single day.ā€

Q: What makes engineering at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų different from other companies?

A: Catherine

ā€œT³ó±šreā€™s a brilliant balance between being able to approach your work in the way you think best, and colleagues being eager to work with you or help you out when you need it.

I also love that Iā€™m involved with writing features from their inception, planning the work, and finally releasing them into the wild. Itā€™s very satisfying to work on something that genuinely makes our usersā€™ jobs easier.ā€

A: Matt

ā€œAt 91³Ō¹ĻĶų we have full ownership of the features we build. We can touch and impact every single layer of the tech stack if we want to, and have regular contact with customers to gain vital context and feedback to help us build the right solutions. This transparency and frequent contact with our customers helps direct our product development and gives us the chance to collaborate with plenty of other teams at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, which is fantastic!ā€

Q: How do you feel we live up to our engineering values at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

A: Catherine

ā€œGood vs perfect: Itā€™s really easy to get bogged down in imagining version 10, when getting version 1 in front of users to get feedback makes sure it solves the users problem and is much better. There have been times when Iā€™ve fixed a bug in a quick way to unblock a user, and then gone back and implemented a more thought out, robust solution after.

Take ownership: Iā€™ve spoken to customers to work out what I need to build. Planned my work, written it, and fixed bugs. You can see your contribution really clearly, and where your work fits into the bigger picture.

Reject process for process sake: 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has grown from 12 people to 170+ since I joined. As you can imagine, thatā€™s a lot of change. Weā€™ve needed to introduce a few new structures and processes over time, but thereā€™s such a willingness to try something and no fear about changing if it doesnā€™t work.ā€

A: Matt

ā€œWeā€™re very proud of our speed of delivery in the engineering team at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. We release the latest version of the product multiple times a day and have the flexibility to easily roll back if there are issues.

As much as this is a credit to the automation practices we have in place at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, this release frequency wouldnā€™t be possible without thinking about how we structure our code changes and the way that we write our code. We have a principle here of: ā€˜We release good now, rather than perfect laterā€™, which drives the concept of delivering in small, but impactful, releasable chunks.ā€

Q: And, finally, the burning question: tabs or spaces?

A: Catherine

ā€ĀŁ±č²¹³¦±š²õ!ā€

A: Matt

ā€œTabs all day!ā€

Eager to have your own engineering impact at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų? Apply now.

Pride is a time to celebrate and stand proud, but itā€™s also a time to reflect on the progress still to be made. Itā€™s important that we remember those who couldnā€™t be there and to stand in solidarity with those in our community living in the 69 countries where homosexuality is still illegal.

A crowd of people hold placards from Amnesty International stating ā€˜Love is a Human Rightā€™ā€‹, while others also hold rainbow flags of various sizes, at a London Pride parade. Many are wearing colourful feather boas and some are blowing whistles. A few can be seen with rainbow face paint.

Whilst June is Pride Month, there are events in cities around the world all throughout the summer: last weekend (9th July), we celebrated Cambridge Pride in ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s home city. This week also marks the sixth month for me as a Gearcitizen, and naturally thatā€™s given me pause to reflect on my journey so far.

For me, itā€™s impossible to separate the personal and the professional at times like this. Iā€™m so proud to work in a company where everyone is encouraged and supported to bring their whole selves to work. Itā€™s easy to forget that not everyone has a safe and supported environment that they can enjoy.

In fact, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that 46% of LGBTQ workers arenā€™t open about their sexual orientation or gender identity at work, and that 1 in 5 have suffered discrimination at work. Whilst the idea of being a ā€˜leaderā€™ sometimes sits uncomfortably with me, I know that I have a duty to use the opportunities I have to raise awareness and advocate for whatā€™s right.

But Iā€™m not the only voice at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Hannah

ā€œT³ó±š most impactful moment of the weekend at London Pride for me was having the opportunity to thank some of the people who had fought for LGBTQ+ rights at the first London Pride in 1972. They walked in the 2022 parade holding signs that said ā€˜Pride @ 50. Still fighting for global LGBT+ freedomā€™. It was so emotional that I had to re-apply my glittery rainbow face paint as my tears meant the makeup had smudged down my face!

I had two conflicting emotions in that moment as I cheered them on: gratitude for the colourful life Iā€™m able to live 50 years later, and sadness that ā€˜still fighting for LGBT+ freedomā€™ needed to be written on their signs at all. Their reminder made me feel very lucky to work for a company where Iā€™m respected and valued, no matter who I love. In fact, itā€™s easy to forget sometimes that there are many people in the UK and around the world who havenā€™t had the same positive experience as Iā€™ve had.

I hope one day we can live in a world where every workplace is as supportive and loving as 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and we can remove ā€˜still fighting for global LGBT+ freedomā€™ from our signs.ā€

Ash

ā€œI still remember my first Pride as a badly dressed teenager with a bunch of my other queer friends, being blown away by the sheer size of the whole thing. Iā€™d never seen so many LGBTQ+ people, let alone so many couples holding hands and kissing without having to look over their shoulder. So many others like me and my friends stood amazed as the whole celebration washed over us.

That first Pride - and every one since then - is always slightly emotional as I reflect, during all the happiness, on those who came before. Those brave souls who laid down the path over the last 50 years so I can go to London Pride 2022, holding my boyfriendā€™s hand without having to look over my shoulder.ā€

Jen

ā€œFor many years I struggled to come to terms with my own identity. It was a combination of being fiercely protective of my own privacy, and fear of the consequences of living my truth.

Pride for me is often filled with mixed emotions. I can remember attending my first event with a backpack that had a change of clothes. That way, no one would know where I was going and I could wipe off any face paint or glitter and be back in civvies ready to travel home. There was always a need to be looking over my shoulder, wondering what would happen if anyone from my family guessed my sexuality.

Fast forward 17 years and Iā€™m engaged to a wonderful woman, with both our parents lovingly driving us crazy as we plan our wedding. Iā€™m very fortunate to have grown up with friends who supported me on my journey, especially when I know so many arenā€™t as lucky.ā€

One of the things Iā€™ve relished most about my time so far at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is becoming part of the extended Salesforce community. Itā€™s enriching in so many ways, and Pride is no different. There is a thriving Outforce community, and when you have a hugely visible ally in Marc Benioff - whose long taken both a moral and business stance on supporting the LGBTQ+ community - the impact of thatā€™s felt around the world. If you were to trace a thread through LGBTQ+ history, youā€™d quickly find the huge impact that allies have had in supporting the community to push forward for equal rights.

Pride for me is about living: living your most authentic life. Itā€™s about supporting those to live theirs; lives that arenā€™t yet free of discrimination. In a weekend rounded off with seeing Elton John finishing his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour with a homecoming gig at Vicarage Road stadium, Iā€™m reminded of one of his most famous quotes: ā€œLive for each second without hesitation.ā€ I couldnā€™t have put it better myself.

Written by Luke Harris with contributions from Hannah Ridge, Ash Rahman, and Jen Hicks.

Where it all started

Our co-founders Kevin Boyle and Matt Dickens, both software engineers by background, met while working at Redgate Software in Cambridge. Redgate had a hand-rolled CRM that was starting to show its age, so they turned to the market for a solution. Like most companies, they found Salesforce to be the obvious choice.

The internal dev team found that Salesforce lived up to the hype when it came to flexibility and ease of customization. But coming from a C# background, they were used to relying on automation to release repeatedly and reliably. And here the team found a gap - the sorts of tools theyā€™d expected didnā€™t really exist for Salesforce. They were stuck with a largely manual release process, and suffering all of the pitfalls and downsides that come with it.

After 6 years together at Redgate, building software tools used by developers on the Microsoft platform, Kevin and Matt noticed that the challenges Salesforce teams were struggling with had a lot of similarities to those faced by Microsoft devs and DBAs.

Like all good product people, Kevin, Matt and a small team of engineers and UX specialists took to the phones and spoke to nearly a hundred Salesforce developers and admins, to understand whether the pains Redgate experienced were common among Salesforce teams. The response was resounding: Redgate was not alone.

The team began building what would become 91³Ō¹ĻĶų as you know it today. After some prototyping, a whirlwind trip to Dreamforce, and sharing mockups and prototypes with countless Salesforce teams, the team had validated the idea. The founding team - Kevin, Matt, Jason, Oli, Luke, Andrew, and Stephen - left Redgate in February 2017 with the full blessing of Simon Galbraith, Redgateā€™s then CEO, and 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was born.

91³Ō¹ĻĶų launched into the world

A little bit of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų trivia for you: why the name ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶųā€? Well, aside from the practical considerations like needing an SEO-friendly name with an available domain, we wanted something with a connection to what we actually did as a company. At the time, Salesforce developers thought more often in terms of the platform, and a gearset is something that transfers force from one place to another - just as 91³Ō¹ĻĶų moves your code and configuration from one environment to another. Decision taken.

In March 2017, we had a team of 7, a skeleton of a product, and a vision of where we wanted to go. We became a team obsessed with understanding how Salesforce devs and admins worked, the problems they struggled with, and building new solutions tailored to those problems.

By the summer of 2017, our focus and hard work had started to pay off with the onboarding of our first paying customers. We used Dreamforce that year as our springboard in a ā€˜make or breakā€™ moment for the company - prove product-market fit by adding enough value for Salesforce teams that we could break even. We came back from Dreamforce, stopped coding (except for bug fixes and minor improvements!) and took to the phones once again, this time to sell. Thankfully, it was ā€˜makeā€™ rather than ā€˜breakā€™, and the companyā€™s gone from strength to strength ever since.

5 years on

91³Ō¹ĻĶų now has thousands of users across the globe. Weā€™ve doubled our headcount every year, with our team now 150 strong across the United Kingdom and United States, our most recent expansion being a new office in the tech hub of Belfast.

The original 7 who started the company (featured in the photo below) are still instrumental in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų today - quite rare for a startup to scale-up company. They even went to the same restaurant they did to celebrate starting the company, 5 years on! Weā€™ll be sharing personal stories of their 91³Ō¹ĻĶų journey in the coming months, so look out for them.

Reflecting on the last 5 years, Kevin, our CEO said:

ā€œWhen founding 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, Matt and I wanted to create a product that would solve real issues for our users, and build a company that we loved working for. Seeing how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has grown over the years gives me the confidence that weā€™ve created just that.

Weā€™ve assembled a team of smart, driven, and passionate people, with a drive to make things better for our users as our main focus. Iā€™m incredibly proud of what weā€™ve achieved so far and look forward to whatā€™s to come.ā€

Want more information on 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

If youā€™re interested to find out more about 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and how you can join our fast-growing team, take a look at our new roles.

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, prioritising and supporting our teamā€™s wellbeing and mental health is always a priority. We care about each other, and feel that no Gearcitizen should ever feel theyā€™re alone.

Our open team culture makes 91³Ō¹ĻĶų a safe space for people to share their struggles and get support from colleagues. We also provide confidential counselling and professional support whenever any of the team needs it.

We know taking time to prioritise your wellbeing to protect your mental health can be challenging in such a fast-paced world, so we took the opportunity with mental health awareness week to run a wellbeing week at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. These are weeks we do regularly at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to help our team take time out and prioritise their wellbeing.

What did wellbeing week look like at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

We kicked off the week with a virtual breathwork session, led by our regular yoga teacher Lucy who runs our weekly yoga sessions. This was a chance for the team to focus on something that we all take for granted, and to provide the tools to use breath for relaxation and repair.

Next up, two 91³Ō¹ĻĶų colleagues Holly and Rachel brought out our inner artists with an engaging art and wellbeing session. This was virtual and in person, and gave the team a chance to step away from our busy days and take part in some mindful, creative exercises. During the session we also discovered we had some budding artists in the company!

On Wednesday, we had an insightful session from Dr Claire Gillvray of , a registered GP and psychiatrist who delivers our confidential counselling service. In this session, Dr Claire shared the evidence and advice around how to combat that feeling of loneliness that comes when we feel low, stressed and anxious. It was a real feel-good session, with lots of advice for life, not just for wellbeing week!

We know moving our bodies has such a positive impact on our mental health, so on Thursday we got our heart rates up with a movement session aptly named cardio is hardio! It was great to get moving in a virtual cardio class run by our very own Jed Ingram.

Finally, to wrap up the week, we heard from Jonny Say of , an NHS High Intensity Therapy Councillor and Mindfulness coach. This session was to help the team with feelings of uncertainty that lead to rising anxiety levels and feelings of loneliness and isolation. This interactive workshop led us through the Finding Certainty Process, which helps combat feelings of uncertainty and provides tools to cope with them.

Outside of the sessions we ran during wellbeing week, we also found ways to further support the team. These included a voucher to a well known coffee chain for people to grab a coffee and cake with a friend whenever they wanted, a wellbeing hour for people to take during the week to spend doing whatever supported their mental health, and an optional daily virtual chat with 4 different colleagues from across 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Wellbeing week was a great reminder for us all to look out for each other, check in and see how weā€™re doing, and take time to protect our mental health. Letā€™s keep talking, keep connected and keep supporting each other.

If youā€™re new to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, weā€™re a friendly bunch! Find out more about us.

Why have a hackathon?

A hackathon is an opportunity to remove the distractions of daily work, get into a new environment and focus on one particular project.

By setting aside 5 days to try something new, we could be more experimental in our approach to solving a key user issue. And by tackling a brand new problem with a team of people who donā€™t usually work together, we could approach the task with fresh and varied perspectives.

Normally, we all have multiple projects to work on and inevitably spend some time on other tasks and meetings. Focusing on one project in this way, outside of our usual roadmap work, allows us to get work out the door much faster.

What were we trying to achieve?

It can be tricky to decide what to build in a hackathon. We wanted to choose something that we could build in a limited amount of time, but that would also be useful. Equally, we didnā€™t want to plan out the weekā€™s work too strictly, because the value of the hackathon is getting different viewpoints and a mixture of ideas so we can solve a problem creatively.

So while we didnā€™t have a set plan, we did go into the hackathon with a clear idea of the problem we wanted to solve.

The Salesforce developers and admins using 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to manage their DevOps processes know how useful 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is in their daily work. But people who arenā€™t using 91³Ō¹ĻĶų every day also want to understand its value. Sometimes senior managers in larger enterprise teams find it difficult to know how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų impacts the performance and health of their DevOps operations, and whether theyā€™re getting the most value out of the tool. We wanted to find a way of presenting more information to these individuals, so they can better evaluate their DevOps performance.

To solve this problem, we decided to build a reporting API that allows senior managers to extract key metrics about the speed and stability of the DevOps processes that theyā€™re carrying out with 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Managers will be able to import this data, combine it with all their other data sources and build their own reports and dashboards that work for them.

We decided to focus on delivering the 4 key , which have become a universal standard to measure DevOps performance:

• Deployment frequency - how often an organization successfully releases to production
• Lead time for changes - the amount of time it takes a commit to get into production
• Time to restore - the time it takes to recover from a failure in production
• Change failure rate - the percentage of deployments causing a failure in production.

These are a crucial way for team leads and managers to understand both the resilience and the velocity of their release pipeline.

How we worked during the week

The hackathon team was made up of 7 software engineers, a UX designer and a marketer (me!).

The developers split into 4 groups, each focusing on a separate DORA metric and finding a way to extract useful data from 91³Ō¹ĻĶų about that metric. We also needed to visualize the data, so some developers worked with our UX designer to present the data and build an example report that can be integrated into usersā€™ own dashboards. And finally, we had to tie all of that together by building a bridge between the data and the visuals to make the information usable and easy to consume.

For the duration of the week, we turned off our notifications, canceled our meetings and set up a new Slack workspace dedicated only to the hackathon. Every morning after breakfast weā€™d have our morning stand-up, where we hashed out the key objectives for that day. Weā€™d get some music going and then get our heads down to work.

The working environment was super collaborative; being in one room together, with a single shared objective, we were able to really bounce ideas off each other and ask each other for advice when challenges arose.

With a mix of experience, ranging from team leads to developers with just 6 months at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we were able to make sure the hackathon experience was productive, efficient and a good learning opportunity. Unfortunately one of our team leads, Ben, was unable to join us in person due to illness, but he joined in remotely and we had him on the projector every day!

Getting to know our colleagues

We spent the week in a large country house, just outside the Cotswolds. There was more than enough space, and it was great to have a comfortable environment in which to get on with our project. We had a fully stocked fridge, plenty of coffee and ample snacks to keep us going!

Living and working together in one space was a great way for us to get to know our teammates better, especially as some of us hadnā€™t met in person before due to remote working. Even though we were working hard, the social side of the hackathon was a great way to recharge and keep momentum for the project.

We spent our evenings playing pool or having a chat around the fireplace. Several members of the team showcased their skills in the kitchen, so we had a lot of delicious dinners, including a BBQ - despite the chilly March weather! And we even ventured into the city of Bath on our final night to celebrate a successful hackathon.

Whatā€™s the result?

The hackathon has been a huge success. After writing thousands of lines of code and merging over 70 PRs, weā€™ve got a working prototype of the reporting API that gathers data for the four DORA metrics and visualizes it in graphical form.

This represents some crucial groundwork for the reporting API, and weā€™re really proud of what we achieved in such a short space of time. The next step will be to build on these foundations to fine-tune how and what senior leaders want to see. Itā€™s not quite ready for customers yet, but weā€™re hoping to begin testing with a small group of users in the near future, before making it more widely available.

Not to mention, weā€™ve had a blast. Itā€™s been an amazing experience to come together and work really closely on a shared goal.

Join us!

If the hackathon sounds like the kind of thing youā€™d love to be part of, take a look at our engineering roles.

91³Ō¹ĻĶų was founded by software developers and the foundation for its ongoing success has been the strength of its product. Our engineers form the largest team within the company, and we hire the very best people to build the best solution for Salesforce teams around the globe. Weā€™re expanding on that success by opening a new product development centre in Belfast for software engineers.

Why Belfast

Making sure we have talented people doing their best work has been the bedrock of our success so far, and is fundamental to the continued success of our company in the future. Belfast is rapidly becoming an exciting tech hub for talent and innovation, and weā€™re confident that itā€™s the best place to open up our next office for software engineers.

Our very own CEO Kevin Boyle also graduated from QUB in 2008, and since starting the company in 2015, heā€™s wanted to bring 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to Belfast because he knows first-hand just how great the talent is there.

Weā€™re really excited to welcome highly experienced tech leader to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and canā€™t wait to support him in heading up our new Belfast office and growing the development team.

The whole company is really excited about opening the new 91³Ō¹ĻĶų hub in Belfast. Weā€™ve already started to see the calibre of amazing engineering talent within the Belfast area, and we canā€™t wait to work with other like-minded engineers who are as passionate as we are about building great products to help our users do their best work!

Having Eamonn on board to head up our new office is great for us as he brings such extensive experience and passion for the industry. Ensuring we retain our unique 91³Ō¹ĻĶų culture in the new office will be fundamental, as weā€™re all one team regardless of location, and we know Eamonn will maintain this culture as the new team expands.

Join our team!

91³Ō¹ĻĶų was founded by developers for developers, and this is still at the heart of our values and everything we do. As an engineer at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, you truly have an impact. The work you do, drives our future and supports thousands of developers worldwide.

If youā€™re interested in finding out more about 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and joining a fast growing established tech scale up at a pivotal point in our journey, then we want to hear from you! Find out more about 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, or take a look at our new roles.

Although the current trends are encouraging, women in the tech space are still the minority - currently about a third of the workforce. Thereā€™s always more we can do to encourage gender diversity within the tech sector, so at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų we actively try to inspire women to join our industry and take the opportunities that a career in tech can bring.

Celebrating women in Salesforce DevOps

Last September we launched a new global community: Women in Salesforce DevOps. This initiative aims to connect, inspire, and empower women who are passionate about building on Salesforce and are looking to excel in their careers.

Sign up to the mailing list and youā€™ll be the first to hear about local meetups in the US and UK, along with virtual events, through which women can support and encourage each other as they take the next step in their Salesforce careers.

Celebrating women at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų: Q&A with Alice Easey, Development Manager

Today we wanted to shine the spotlight on our Development Manager, Alice Easey. Alice has been at the company for nearly a year now and her career hasnā€™t been a straightforward path into DevOps. After studying for a degree in AI, Alice entered into the worlds of programming games, nursing and teaching English in Japan! However, her path has always led back to tech.

How did you come to work for 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œI had worked with a fair number of the engineers at a previous company and was very happy and honoured to join when they needed someone with my skills and experience.ā€

What do you love most about your role?

ā€œI love the quest to make something new and the problem-solving aspects. Iā€™m grateful to my managers who encouraged me to get into management, which Iā€™m really enjoying, especially helping people grow and develop in their careers.ā€

Why do you think thereā€™s a gender imbalance in the industry?

ā€œT³ó±šreā€™s definitely a pipeline problem: fewer women apply for STEM courses compared with men. I think itā€™s still the case that girls will look at what other women are doing and that probably wonā€™t involve female coders. I also think the wider industry has a retainment issue, especially around coming back after maternity leave or offering the flexibility around caring for family members. When I worked for the NHS, most nurses were part-time and the culture was much more geared towards people with families, but itā€™s harder to achieve in tech companies where the norm is to work full-time.ā€

Do you feel the gender imbalance is closing?

ā€œSomewhat. I was one of 3 women on my degree course and Iā€™ve been the only female coder or only female full stop in various companies - I havenā€™t seen that in the last 10 years or so, although weā€™re still very far away from a 50/50 split. Iā€™m still concerned about the lack of female leadership in senior positions despite studies showing that companies that embrace this outperform companies with all-male boards or C-level roles. Itā€™s great to see that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has female representation at senior leadership level.ā€

What would you say to a woman who was on the fence about applying to a software engineer role at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų?

ā€œIā€™d say go for it! Itā€™s a great team - not only the engineers but across all the functions - and we have a really good culture to help people learn and develop their skills. Even though weā€™re growing pretty fast it still feels like a startup and there are lots of opportunities to be involved in things outside of your immediate project like mentoring interns, hack week, monitoring and fixing security issues, talking to customers, and representing 91³Ō¹ĻĶų at conferences like Dreamforce.ā€

Have we inspired you? Weā€™re hiring!

Recently voted the #3 best tech company to work for in the UK, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų offers a brilliant place for women to grow in their career. If youā€™re passionate about solving problems creatively and working in an incredibly collaborative environment then 91³Ō¹ĻĶų might just be the place for you. We have vacancies in all areas across the company including software engineers, sales, marketing and customer success. Apply today!

The CSN cafƩ is designed for Customer Success professionals at all stages of their career, to meet, discuss challenges, and share best practises in a relaxed setting over drinks and food.

This was the first of many Customer Success CafĆ© events 91³Ō¹ĻĶų will be hosting, as this topic is very close to our heart. Customer Success is something we truly live and breathe as a company, and weā€™re very transparent with our approach, including recently sharing what the CSM role looks like at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

For our first Cambridge cafƩ, we were joined by Marija Skobe-Pilley, host of the who shared some great insights from her experience of what makes a successful CSM.

Marija revealed the 9 traits she thinks help make a successful CSM:

1. Start with WHY
2. Read the room
3. Tell a story with data
4. Develop your personal success engine
5. Become an influencer
6. Become a product expert
7. Become a coach
8. Become a team captain
9. Do it with a smile

We asked Luke Harris, VP of Customer Success at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, what he made of the event.

ā€œHosting the first CSN CafĆ© in Cambridge was a real thrill. Marijaā€™s ā€˜9 traits for a great CSMā€™ were so powerful, and the feedback I had after the event was universally positive. Having a leader like Marija break down the core attributes undoubtedly helped everyone in the room really focus on development areas - plus we had fun doing it!

ā€œWhen Marija spoke of focusing on being a ā€˜Team Captainā€™, of building a group to support your customer, it highlighted the operational leadership that CSMs are starting to bring to their companies (big and small). I hope this will continue to inspire CSMs to see direct pathways to the boardroom, and that the C-Suite is an attainable goal.

ā€œOne of the things I find so powerful about spending time with others in the Customer Success community is how open everyone is to sharing the challenges they face. Thereā€™s an industry-wide commitment to improve customer experience, and the outcomes customers are seeking, that shines through so clearly at events like this.ā€

If you want to come along to the next Customer Success Network CafĆ© Cambridge event, itā€™ll be on the 18th May 2022 at The Bradfield Centre, Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge. To find out more or book your ticket visit

P.s Look out for the recording from the event which weā€™ll be sharing on our LinkedIn page shortly.

If youā€™re new to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, weā€™re a friendly bunch! Find out more about us.

In this post, Iā€™ll explain how 91³Ō¹ĻĶų sees the CSM role, what you can expect from your CSM, and why we place so much value on this function.

What is a CSM?

A Customer Success Manager proactively engages with customers, helping them to make the most of their products and improve their performance over time. This makes CSMs distinct from Account Managers, as CSMs give their customers ongoing strategic support rather than focusing on renewals alone. CSMs also have a different function than customer support - a common misunderstanding about the role.

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we have a truly amazing customer support team. Our average response time is under 3 minutes, and we have a 98% satisfaction rating for interactions on our live chat. Our Customer Support Engineers are expert at handling any and every issue that comes their way, helping admins and developers to troubleshoot their Salesforce deployments, whether they need help understanding the quirks of Salesforceā€™s Metadata API or just need some guidance navigating ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s UI.

Our CSEs do vitally important work and they are there to support all of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s customers and trialists. But the CSM role is different. As you look to implement DevOps for Salesforce, your CSM will assist you in identifying long-term objectives for your business and advising how best to achieve those outcomes.

Strategic coordination

CSMs are your strategic point of contact within 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and will work with you across every stage of your journey with us. Like you, your CSM wants to see you succeed in maturing into Salesforce DevOps with improvements in your development and release process over time. To ensure this happens, your CSM will proactively partner with you to identify key areas of focus, co-author a plan to achieve those improvements and provide assurances for delivery.

Your CSM will also coordinate a team of experts within 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, pulling together relevant people based on your requirements. For example, they might arrange time with our Product and Engineering teams, onboarding experts, or DevOps transformation advisors. Your CSM will actively track your progress and reach out to assist whenever they can offer support, not just at renewal.

Expert advisors

Salesforce teams can quickly adopt DevOps tools and processes. But getting buy-in from the team, bedding in new processes and building a DevOps culture takes time. Your 91³Ō¹ĻĶų CSM will guide you on the journey. While there isnā€™t any one workflow that works for every team, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų will make recommendations based on best practice and our experience working with hundreds of teams like yours. Thereā€™s a logical sequence of steps that teams should follow when implementing DevOps, and weā€™ve charted that course in our maturity matrix.

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s own roadmap is user-driven, and your CSM will be happy to hear your feature requests. CSMs will dig into all of your use cases to get a deep understanding of your process and problems. Sometimes they can advise on a best-practice approach that solves the issue your team is facing. Where thereā€™s a way 91³Ō¹ĻĶų can be developed to support a new approach that works well for teams, your CSM will act as your champion internally and loop in our software engineers. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has delivered on hundreds of feature requests direct from our users, and releases a constant stream of improvements up to three times a day.

Managing customersā€™ success

Perhaps the best way to summarize the CSMā€™s role is by unpacking the job title: weā€™re here to manage our customersā€™ success. Whatever it takes, weā€™ll help you to deliver on the promise of DevOps for Salesforce. Weā€™ll support you to establish your DevOps strategy, map out the journey and guide you along the way.

Achieving DevOps success will go hand in hand with expanding your use of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and this falls within the remit of your CSM. As a trusted partner, they are best placed to advise you on the licenses you need to meet your DevOps goals and unlock even more Salesforce ROI.

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s approach has always been to stay close to our users, so we deeply understand their workflows, opportunities and challenges. Everyone at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, regardless of their role, regularly speaks with users so we always keep touch with our amazing community. Within that model, the CSM is an especially important figure as a constant companion for customers.

Stay in touch!

As well as providing you with a complete DevOps solution, with all the tools you need for development and releases on the Salesforce platform, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų will support you to maximize the value you get from those tools. The last few years have seen more and more teams move to adopt DevOps, and 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has been at the forefront of that transition, leading the ecosystem towards highly automated, source-driven workflows.

If you need any help understanding or implementing DevOps practices, or just want to give us feedback on how youā€™ve found working with your CSM, get in touch via the live chat on this page. We always love hearing from you!

We always spend a lot of time listening to customer suggestions and making improvements to our app. But we rarely have the whole engineering team pulling in one direction like this, and we hope youā€™ll agree the results are pretty astounding!

In this post, weā€™ll explain how we approached our recent polish week and highlight our 5 favorite polishes.

Identifying the improvements weā€™d work on

Three weeks before polish week, everyone at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was encouraged to contribute ideas for app improvements to a shared Kanban board. A significant portion of the submitted ideas came from customer feedback and our , but many were also taken directly from Gearcitizensā€™ personal experience.

All suggested tasks were initially tagged as ā€œTo reviewā€. Our Product and UX teams assessed each one to work out whether a feature or fix was worth implementing, and what the solution might be. Tasks were then tagged as:

• Approved. Tasks that we were happy to implement, but needed more information or UI designs.
• Specced. Tasks that were ready for any developer to pick up and work on.
• Not quite yet. Tasks that were too large for polish week, so were migrated to our roadmap.

This preparation work meant that when the morning of the 13th of December came round there was lots of work ready for developers to start.

Tackling the tasks during polish week

Developers could assign themselves any task of their choosing from the specced list of polish week tasks. A rudimentary difficulty rating for each task gave an indication as to how much time and expertise a task would require, and whether collaborating with other developers would be sensible or even necessary.

Some developers chose to work through lots of smaller tasks, while others chose larger tasks that tackled more challenging features.

Polish week saw engineers from different teams working together on more complex tasks. Collaboration was actively encouraged, and made sure that we managed to complete some of the more difficult tasks during the five days of polish week.

We always have a short release cycle at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, and polish week was no different. We released once or twice every day, shipping newly implemented features and fixes to customers as quickly as possible. This meant that our users were able to see the impact of polish week in real-time throughout the week, checking the ā€œWhatā€™s newā€ section of the app for regular updates.

Our top 5 polishes

1. Rollbacks for CI job deployments

The ability to roll back a continuous integration (CI) job run was a heavily requested feature. Many Gearcitizens were surprised to learn that this functionality didnā€™t already exist. It was already possible in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to roll back manual deployments, so the logic for this rollback functionality was already in our codebase, and one of our developers was able to implement this feature by the end of polish week.

2. CI job history shows in-progress runs

Also on CI jobs, we recognized internally it was a little challenging to view the progress of a running CI job, as it wouldnā€™t appear on the CI jobā€™s history page until the run was complete. We felt it was important to see all the information relating to a single job, including an in-progress run, in a single shared location. We want to reduce the need to navigate around from page to page as much as possible, and this feature felt like a relatively straightforward way to host all information relating to a CI job in one place.

3. Data deployment history now loads faster

Itā€™s incredibly important to us that the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų app has great performance and responsiveness. Thatā€™s why one of the polish week tasks was to improve the loading speed of the data deployments history page. We identified the slow loading of this page, especially for customers with a long history of deployments, as a pain point we wanted to address.

We discovered that the performance of this page was being slowed by some heavy recalculations taking place every time the page loaded. The developer working on this task decided to store a number of pre-calculated values in our database relating to the information displayed on this page. These stored values make database queries much faster, so the page as a whole is quicker to load - especially for users with hundreds of historic items!

4. Automatic detection of the default Git branch

When users selected a source control repository as the source or target on the configure page, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų used to select the first branch in that repository alphabetically by default. We wanted 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to be smarter than this! More often, teams want to select their repositoryā€™s default branch, usually the main branch, so thatā€™s what 91³Ō¹ĻĶų now selects by default.

Weā€™ve added support for this for GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, Bitbucket and Bitbucket Server, so next time youā€™re selecting a repository 91³Ō¹ĻĶų will make a better guess at which branch you might want to compare changes from. And donā€™t worry if main or master isnā€™t your repositoryā€™s default branch ā€” 91³Ō¹ĻĶų pulls the default branch information directly from GitHub and Bitbucketā€™s APIs, so itā€™ll know exactly what your default branch is called!

5. Text filters now persist through page refreshes

This request came from our customer success team, as they often used the text filters on various pages in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų but found the filtering had disappeared whenever they refreshed a page, leaving them to re-type their filters again.

This was a prime example of a polish week task: something that was implemented within a couple of days, but will have a huge impact on the general user experience of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Our CS team and customers are already appreciating it!

Join us next time!

Come and be part of the next polish week and make a huge difference to our thousands of customers worldwide! Check out our latest engineering jobs.

The first week

Even before our internship started, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų made us feel welcome. They made sure we had everything we needed for our home set-ups, from laptops to comfortable office chairs. They even sent each of us a welcome box of luxury chocolates! It was clear right from the start that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų really cares about each and every member of the team.

There was a consensus between the interns that starting the internship remotely was daunting because, as with any new job or internship, we didnā€™t quite know what to expect, but also because remote working is generally new to all of us. However, we quickly learned that there was nothing to worry about! ā€œI was really nervous,ā€ Phat explains. ā€œI wasnā€™t sure how the internship was going to pan out. But on the first day, my mentor reassured me and guided me through the next steps and made sure I had the best possible experience ever since my first day.ā€

After having chats with our mentors, we were given plenty of time to get settled. 91³Ō¹ĻĶų allowed a big chunk of time in our first few weeks for us to learn more about the company and the product. Spending some time getting to grips with Slack, where all of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s internal communications take place, really helped with understanding the company culture and puts newcomers at ease.

Making a real impact

All of the interns agree that, throughout our time at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, weā€™ve felt like ordinary members of the team. Since the first week, the team has trusted us with the work weā€™ve been doing. ā€œWe just started coding right away,ā€ says Jan. ā€œTo put things into perspective, we pushed our first change to the product on day 2!ā€

As an intern, you want to feel trusted to do the same work as your colleagues and have an impact on the wider company. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, thatā€™s definitely the case, as Oktarian says: ā€œT³ó±šre is no such thing as an intern project here! You immediately become a member of the team working on tasks that directly impact ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s customers, and I got to learn a lot in the process.ā€ Ben feels the same: ā€œWeā€™ve been working on real projects with real users and we have definitely been making a difference.ā€

A culture of collaboration and feedback

³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s open and transparent structure fosters a true sense of community throughout the company. It means that everyone across different departments works on the same projects, and this has a real benefit for interns. Rather than being limited to work in one area, we were able to work with lots of different people on varied projects. For example, as the marketing intern, Iā€™ve worked with software engineers to write blog posts on feature releases.

Another one of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s core pillars is honest and constructive feedback - all work is reviewed by at least one other person with helpful suggestions and further input. For the software engineers, code review ensures their work is to the highest quality: ā€œT³ó±š code review process at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is great as you get fantastic feedback from your peers to make your code just that bit better,ā€ explains Ben. Feedback has also allowed the interns to learn quickly and boost their skills. ā€œIā€™ve heard stories of my friendsā€™ internships where they donā€™t receive any feedback so they canā€™t improve at all,ā€ Phat says.

91³Ō¹ĻĶų is flexible and fun!

ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų is really flexible in terms of working remotely,ā€ Jan tells us. Even before the pandemic, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was flexible about working from home - so they adapted really well when everyone switched to virtual work. Thomas explains: ā€œHaving worked remotely for most of my internship, I donā€™t feel like I missed out on anything. Every week, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų sets up a virtual meetup with you and three other random members of the team, which gave us a chance to see lots of different faces.ā€

91³Ō¹ĻĶųters know how to have fun! ā€œT³ó±š company put a lot of effort into hosting social events to bridge the gap between the interns. For example, our first event was a virtual escape room!ā€ says Phat. Towards the end of our internship, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų was able to host their annual summer party in-person, which had an inflatable laser tag arena, ping pong, a burger van, and much more!

Our key takeaways

I asked the interns what theyā€™re going on to do next, and their key takeaway from this summer at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Phat has just finished his bachelorā€™s degree in Computer Science at University of Southampton, and is moving on to study a masterā€™s at Anglia Ruskin next. Phatā€™s key takeaway is that, at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, everyone pays attention to every little detail - and that has influenced him in a positive way.

Thomas is going into his fourth and final year at University of Cambridge studying Information Engineering. Thomas explains that his key takeaway is how he was able to make an impact on the product since the first week. ā€œOverall Iā€™ve had a great internship and I can definitely see myself working at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų in the future!ā€

Ben is starting his third year at Warwick studying Computer Science. For Ben, the internship has been invaluable in honing his skills working as part of a team and all that entails: ā€œItā€™s very different from working independently at university and gives you a real head start for working life.ā€

Janā€™s a Computer Science student at Cambridge and is going into his third and final year. He found the mentorship at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to be extremely rewarding, and explains that the friendly team is something really special.

Oktarian will be heading into third year of Computer Science in Hong Kong. Oktarian enjoyed every aspect of the internship: ā€œWorking on an innovative product, learning valuable skills, and meeting friendly teammates are just some of the reasons the internship outperformed my expectations!ā€

Iā€™m starting my fourth year studying Physics at Imperial College. Itā€™s difficult to point out a single takeaway because Iā€™ve learnt so much these past 10 weeks, but one highlight has been getting to experience the level of trust and confidence 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has in each member of the team - itā€™s truly empowering!

Sound good? Apply to join the team!

All of the interns agreed that we canā€™t recommend 91³Ō¹ĻĶų enough! The internship challenged us every single day, but was equally as rewarding. If 91³Ō¹ĻĶų sounds like your kind of company, visit the careers page to see our current job openings, and check back at the end of 2021 for the summer 2022 internship opportunities!

Up to this point, weā€™ve been based almost entirely in Cambridge, UK. Now, weā€™re heading stateside and opening our US head office in Chicago šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø

Supporting growth in the US

70% of our customer base is in the US, so weā€™re setting up shop in Chicago both to support growth and to make sure we keep delivering for our users. will be returning to Chicago to head up and expand ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s US team, drawing on his decade of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem.

ā€Ąįā€™m excited to be part of this important milestone for 91³Ō¹ĻĶų! With such strong growth in the US, having a local team makes good sense and is a real opportunity to work closely with our US customers as an in-region team, building on our outstanding customer support. Culture is very important to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, so Iā€™m looking forward to extending our UK culture and community as the building blocks of our new team.ā€

From Cambridge to Chicago

While we plan to hire across the US, weā€™ve decided to locate our US head office in Chicago. Looking across the pond, we were drawn to Chicagoā€™s tech scene - a leading innovation hub with a huge amount of local talent. With Salesforce tower Chicago midway through construction, Salesforce is also expanding its Chicago presence.

Join us!

Companies of all shapes and sizes are using 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to get the most out of their Salesforce investment. If you want to work at a fast-growing and friendly company, come and join us!

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we favor the iteration approach - we try to slice our product work into small, vertical slices, releasing good now instead of perfect later. In this post, Iā€™ll explore why we prefer that approach, what we mean by ā€œsmall, vertical slicesā€, and how we achieve it in practice.

Back to basics

In the beginning, software was released on physical media. The only way to deliver a new version was to batch up all the improvements you wanted to make, do a lot of testing to make sure that you didnā€™t have any show-stopping bugs, and release the whole new version at once. This approach is sometimes called a ā€œBig Bangā€ release, and itā€™s still often used today for some types of software, such as games and operating systems.

There are some advantages to the Big Bang model, but there are also a lot of downsides. For example, you might spend months perfecting a whole set of features, and then discover that your customers donā€™t actually want that feature set, or they were imagining the features would work differently. Itā€™s hard to set up a tight feedback cycle between your development process and the users of your product if youā€™re not getting new iterations in front of them very often.

In addition, it might be tricky to ship small bug fixes if your workflow isnā€™t set up to make releasing easy and painless. If you do a release once every six months, youā€™re unlikely to have spent the time and effort setting that workflow up. On the other end of the spectrum, if releasing multiple times per day is routine to your team, then getting a fix out to customers will be quick and easy.

As a result of these and other advantages, the general trend has been towards more frequent, smaller releases. This has also been driven by the rising popularity of web apps, app stores, and other distribution channels that allow for quick and easy upgrades to new versions of the software. At the same time, thereā€™s been a trend towards using ā€œagileā€ methodologies within software workflows. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų we donā€™t follow any particular agile methodology down to the letter, but we do pick and choose the parts we like most from a lot of them. Our approach to breaking up development work is a great example of that.

Vertical slicing

Okay, so lots of people are moving to smaller releases. Hereā€™s where the ā€œvertical slicingā€ comes in. A small release implies that not many changes are shipped in each release, but it doesnā€™t imply anything about the shape and nature of those changes. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we like to think about feature work in terms of ā€œslicesā€.

Slices

A slice is, essentially, a single deliverable chunk of a feature. Usually a developer will take a feature that they want to build, look at what the main components of it are, and decide what the smallest useful chunk of functionality is that they can implement to get towards the goal of having the whole feature implemented.

Ideally, a slice should be a single conceptual change or, if thatā€™s not possible, a logical grouping of changes. We avoid grouping changes when they donā€™t need to be grouped. Letā€™s say we have some alterations we want to make to a page - we want to change some of the behavior, and we also want to update the layout to be more consistent with some other pages. In this case, weā€™d probably deliver the work in two slices, one with the behavior change and one with the layout change, because theyā€™re not particularly dependent on each other.

Vertical vs horizontal slices

When we come to implement a feature and start thinking about slicing, we can often think of multiple ways to break up the work. So how do we decide which way of slicing the feature is best?

Letā€™s take a step back to think about the benefits weā€™re trying to achieve. Weā€™ll explore them below in more depth, but for the moment, youā€™ll notice that Iā€™ve split them into two sections:

Benefits of small slices:

• Limit the risk of each release - as each change is small, the risk of the release is lower
• Allow for more useful peer review - regularly reviewing smaller changes is more timely and effective
• Maintain momentum - itā€™s more motivating to be constantly shipping improvements
• Encourage frequent releases - smaller slices mean work gets finished more often and thereā€™s almost always something to release

Added benefits of vertical slices:

• Deliver useful improvements to customers as soon as possible
• Get quick feedback from customers on new features
• Be able to pivot when priorities change and the thing youā€™re working on is no longer the most valuable thing you could be doing
• Exercise code paths and expose bugs as early as possible

Okay, but what is a vertical slice?

The term ā€œverticalā€ comes from the idea of slicing down the technology stack, rather than across one layer. In general, a new feature will require some changes to all levels of abstraction.

When delivering a feature in slices, we could make just the changes to one abstraction level at a time (so, just do the database changes, and then just the backend changes, and then just the UI changes, for example). This would be a horizontal slice.

Alternatively, we could make multiple changes that sliced vertically through the stack, each adding one small part of the functionality throughout all the levels of abstraction. This would be a vertical slice.

At a glance, vertical slicing seems more complicated and difficult - isnā€™t it easier to just touch one level of abstraction at a time? In some cases, youā€™d be right. However, the problem with the horizontal approach is that the work youā€™ve done isnā€™t really ā€œreleasedā€ in a true sense until all the layers (and so all the changes) are finished. If you do a release to change the database, and another to change the backend, none of that code will actually be executed until the UI is updated to make use of those changes. In addition, users wonā€™t get any benefits until the final slice is in.

In contrast, with a vertical slice, you aim to release usable functionality in each slice. That way, users get their hands on the cool work youā€™ve been doing even faster, and you get to talk to them to see if youā€™re taking the feature in the right direction. In addition, at any point after a slice is released, you could stop and work on something else without having any work in a limbo state where itā€™s released but isnā€™t being used yet.

This ghost-code introduced by horizontal slicing is risky in multiple ways:

• If for some reason you decide not to finish the last slice, youā€™ve wasted all the effort in the previous slices, because youā€™ve released no changes to functionality.
• Youā€™ve never executed that code in production, so itā€™s more likely that it contains unknown bugs.
• If you take too long to develop and release the last slice, assumptions made in the rest of the code may have become invalid without you noticing (again, because itā€™s not being executed regularly in production).

Exceptions that prove the rule

As with all rules, you ²õ³ó“Ē³Ü±ō»å²Ōā€™t just blindly follow the ā€œvertical slices are betterā€ rule. There are a few cases where horizontal slices are more appropriate.

In the main, horizontal slices are better when you have operational considerations about how to release a change to production. For example, there are cases where we need to deploy a database change independently from any code changes to make sure things are forwards/backwards compatible, as part of our blue-green deployment process. Sometimes this is unavoidable - itā€™s not that you wouldnā€™t get the benefits from vertical slices here, but sometimes other considerations make it hard or impossible to follow the rule.

You might be able to get the best of both worlds by slicing each of your vertical slices horizontally to increase your granularity (in the diagram above youā€™d end up with a release 1a, 1b, 1c etc.) Whether that approach ends up with overcomplication and slicing your releases too small is something of a judgement call.

As usual with this sort of rule of thumb, life doesnā€™t always fit neatly into the analogy. You wonā€™t always be able to categorize your slice neatly into ā€œverticalā€ or ā€œhorizontalā€, and there isnā€™t always a clear best way. It is, however, a useful framework for thinking about how to split up large chunks of work, and an idea that we have found very powerful at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

At least you know you have a version of the product that works: the previous version. With an instant rollback, you can switch to the old version immediately, and if youā€™re lucky your customers wonā€™t even notice.

Once youā€™ve got instant rollbacks in place, you can release more often and with confidence - knowing that if something goes wrong, thereā€™s a safety net in place.

What are blue-green deployments?

Blue-green deployments are a way to release your product without downtime. Rather than having a single production instance, you have two, traditionally labelled ā€˜blueā€™ and ā€˜greenā€™. At any time, only one colour is active and serving traffic.

These two production instances might be two processes running on the same machine, or two entirely separate clusters of virtual machines. This has the downside that you effectively need to double up on all infrastructure, while only half of it is being used at full capacity at any one time - increasing both complexity and cost.

In order to deploy a new version, you tear down the inactive colour and replace it with the newer version. After it has started up, you switch all user traffic to the newly started instance. The new colour is now active, and the old colour is inactive.

In theory, this switchover can be gradual, but at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų we currently switch all user traffic at once. By doing this, itā€™s much easier to know what state all your users are in at any one time, and that users are always being served with the latest version. However, with a gradual switchover, you can monitor production workloads running on the new version and abort the rollout with fewer impacted customers if there is something wrong.

How do blue-green deployments help with instant rollbacks?

Once you have blue-green deployments in place, instant rollbacks are easy (in theory). All you need to do is switch which colour is currently active, without replacing the inactive colour as you would with part of a release.

There are things to consider when doing this. Speaking in the context of a web application like 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, the userā€™s web browser will have loaded the new version of the application, but requests will be handled by the previous version of the web server.

This can be a major issue if the release added endpoints that the frontend relies on, since these will no longer exist. Or, you may have updated existing endpoints to return additional fields, which again will no longer be there. Weā€™ll cover solutions to these problems later. Fortunately, users tend to refresh their web browser if they find things arenā€™t working, but ideally weā€™d like to avoid this as much as possible.

Another thing to consider is that although you have rolled back your application, you havenā€™t rolled back your database - you need to make sure your database changes are compatible. And finally, the new version of your application is still running (as the inactive colour). Any long-running tasks that were kicked off in the new version will still be running in the now inactive instance.

How do you structure your code to handle blue-green deployments correctly?

Since the frontend and backend of your application update independently, all developers need to keep in mind both forwards and backwards compatibility. In general, customers will be using the current version of the frontend. However, just after a release, customers will be using the previous version of the frontend but their requests will be going to the new backend version. In 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, a popup appears letting customers know that there is an update available and they should refresh their browsers (bringing their frontend version in line with the current backend version).

If the next 91³Ō¹ĻĶų version adds some functionality that requires the frontend to send extra information in a request, it cannot assume this information will always be included, because customers might still be running an old frontend version. Any new endpoint needs to be able to handle this. Similarly, if the new backend wants to stop sending some information to the frontend, the frontend needs to be able to handle this information being missing before the release.

This discrepancy between the frontend and backend generally only exists for one release. Customers rarely use 91³Ō¹ĻĶų for so long that their browser session isnā€™t refreshed after two releases. Having said that, the faster we get our release cadence, the more likely it is!

If a rollback happens, you get the opposite situation. Customers will have a new version of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų frontend communicating with the old version of the backend. Because of all of this, you can find yourself in a situation where one version of the backend is simultaneously handling requests from three different versions of the frontend.

To ensure that users wonā€™t be affected during a release or after a rollback, we follow these rules:

• Release new endpoints first without using them yet. This way, if you need to roll back, requests made to the new endpoints wonā€™t fail. Often, weā€™ll write the frontend anyway and then hide it from users using feature flagging. This makes testing the changes in the staging environment much easier.
• When deleting endpoints, make sure that the frontend doesnā€™t rely on their existence for at least two releases. Doing this makes sure that customers never end up hitting the endpoints with an old version of the frontend.
• If you are updating an existing endpoint, allow the old form of the request for at least one release, since the old version of the frontend wonā€™t be sending the new version. Also, ensure the old endpoint can parse the format of the new endpoint to handle rollbacks gracefully. This can be done by allowing empty values in new request objects.

Since everyone on the engineering team takes part in releases, everyone thinks about how their changes will be released. And because of that, these rules become second nature.

What about database changes?

Itā€™s unlikely that your database is deployed with blue-green deployments, because having two copies of your database introduces a lot of complexity when making sure that the data stays consistent between them. As a result, database migrations need to be thought about carefully. At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we always run pending database migrations in advance of the release. This means the new database version will be used across three different versions of the product at some point: in the previous version, the current version and the next version. Because of this, you have to structure your database changes carefully.

If you are only adding a new table to the database, then you can add it in one migration and immediately start using it. However, if youā€™re altering an existing table, some extra thought will need to go into the release strategy.

Adding a new column to a table

Suppose you want to add a new required column to a table in the database. You canā€™t add it in immediately, because any rows inserted into the table before releasing the new version will fail due to a missing required field. Adding the column over the course of three releases allows this to be done safely.

In the first release, you add the new column but allow it to be null (or set a sensible default). You can start writing to this column in the same release that the change is introduced, but you cannot yet guarantee that there is always a value for that column, because there may be a gap between adding the column and releasing the new version of the code, and any rows written in that gap wonā€™t have a value for the new column. Also, in case of a rollback, any data written after the rollback will also result in null values.

After two releases, both the active and inactive colour will be writing to this new field. So now you can use a third release to run an update migration that will fill in the remaining null fields, and you can start reading from the new column. Since we release two to three times per day, this isnā€™t a very long wait.

Almost all database changes can be done using this pattern, and the few that canā€™t will need special consideration to handle the fact that three versions of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų need to be able to read and write to any one database version.

An example of a release strategy for a new feature

Suppose a 91³Ō¹ĻĶų customer wants to include some free-form notes to go along with their 91³Ō¹ĻĶų deployment, in order to keep track of what theyā€™ve changed. In order to add this, we need to be able to collect this information from the user and store it in the database for later retrieval.

We already have a deployments table in the database, and endpoints to both create and read these deployments. However, storing this free-form text is not currently implemented.

In the first release, add a notes column to the deployments table which is optionally null (this is a case where we can never make the column not nullable because we have old deployments that donā€™t have notes). We can also add support for receiving a notes field in the ā€˜create deploymentā€™ request, which at the moment we allow not to exist at all. Finally, we return the deployment notes if they exist when getting a deployment.

This can be released, and is entirely compatible with the current state of the frontend because we didnā€™t change it.

Suppose there was a bug either in the writing of the deployment notes, or in something unrelated included in the same release, which made us roll back. There are no issues with the deployment notes writing because the column is allowed to be null, and the client doesnā€™t expect deployment notes to be included in the ā€˜get deploymentā€™ request.

For the frontend client changes, when a customer creates their 91³Ō¹ĻĶų deployment, we include deployment notes in the ā€˜create deploymentā€™ request that gets sent to the backend server, and also display deployment notes if we receive them from the backend.

These changes can then be released, as they are entirely compatible with the backend changes - provided they have already been released.

Again, if there was an issue with these changes that forced us to roll back, then customers with the new frontend would enjoy deployment notes until they refreshed their client, and customers with the old frontend would never have seen them, making instant rollbacks seamless to the customer.

Deliver value quickly

Instant rollbacks and downtime-free deployments are both easy with blue-green deployments. Getting them to work effectively requires some discipline, and how to release your change must always be on your mind. However, the benefits for you and your customers are massive. Blue-green deployments make your releases less scary, they allow you to innovate and deliver value to your customers quickly, and they provide a safety net for when things go wrong.

If you want to be part of an engineering team that ships every day, and helps customers see the benefit of working like this too, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų could be the place for you. Find out more about our engineering roles.

Getting started

Starting a new job and working from home are each pretty daunting prospects. Add them together, and you might think...nightmare! Most of us felt anxious about how this would work. Getting to know a new team and learning a bunch of new skills remotely doesnā€™t sound like the easiest task, but, as Sam says, ā€œI ²õ³ó“Ē³Ü±ō»å²Ōā€™t have worried! 91³Ō¹ĻĶų did everything to make sure I was comfortable, sending a brand new laptop, monitors, and other computer tech - even offering to provide a new desk and chair if I needed them.ā€

Our first week struck a good balance between learning about the product, meeting the team, and starting to produce our own work. We had the chance to attend lots of virtual onboarding workshops which were run by people from a range of different departments, giving us insight into ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s open, collaborative nature. ā€œEveryone you work with feels more like a friend than a colleague,ā€ explains Matt, ā€œand that makes the experience quite unique.ā€ With a fantastic team to offer guidance and support, we were able to produce real, impactful work from the get go.

What we do

At 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we work on the same projects as any other member of the team, which is incredibly rewarding. ā€œ91³Ō¹ĻĶų has a flat structure,ā€ explains Blair. ā€œThroughout my time working on the product, Iā€™ve spoken directly to the head of product design, and my decisions have had a clear impact on the app.ā€ Similarly, in my first four weeks as part of the marketing team, Iā€™ve already had the opportunity to write several blog posts, create a customer story, work on this monthā€™s newsletter and help boost ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s social media presence.

Learning on the job has some serious benefits, too. ā€Ąįā€™m getting better at navigating a huge code base because of ³Ņ±š²¹°ł²õ±š³Łā€™s reviewing culture,ā€ says Sam. ā€œMy work gets checked, and Iā€™m also checking and trying to understand other peopleā€™s code, which means Iā€™m learning very quickly.ā€ For many of us, working in this type of environment is a completely new experience. ā€œLearning a lot of new information can be quite overwhelming,ā€ adds Matt, ā€œbut itā€™s easy to contact any member of the team through Slack if youā€™ve got a question.ā€

In addition to this, each intern has a mentor from within their particular department. ā€œI can be quite an anxious person, so itā€™s been really helpful having a specific person to talk me through things and to offer a helping hand,ā€ recalls Sam. ā€œT³ó±šy keep track of how your internship is going, so you never feel abandoned.ā€ Will agrees, ā€œitā€™s been such an important part of the experience.ā€

All work, no play? No way!

Even though Covid-19 means that we donā€™t get to experience what itā€™s like to work in the office, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has created an active and lively social life online. Itā€™s easy to connect with other people from the company through Slack, and there are a whole range of interesting channels outside of work. You can bond with co-workers over everything from sourdough recipesšŸž to cute animal pictures in #animalympics šŸˆ, and thereā€™s always someone hanging out in #buffalo-tea for a brew ā˜•.

During our first week at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, we took part in an ā€˜intern quizā€™, which helped us with getting to know more of the team - especially since it unleashed our competitive sides! Every few weeks, thereā€™s also a ā€˜drink and learnā€™ event, where different people from the company give ā€˜lightning talksā€™ while we all have an afternoon soft drink or beer.

The best bit? Being part of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team

As you can probably tell by now, being an intern at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is pretty damn good. But whatā€™s the best part?

Sam, whoā€™s going into her Masters year at the University of York, thinks itā€™s the friendly atmosphere. ā€œEveryone is so nice all of the time! Plus, the Friday takeaways arenā€™t too bad either.ā€

Matt, going into his fourth year at Southampton, agrees: ā€œEven though weā€™re working, I can still be myself. It sometimes takes me quite a while to feel comfortable socializing with new people, so Iā€™m really grateful that 91³Ō¹ĻĶų is open and accepting.ā€

For Blair, a soon-to-be third year student at St Andrews, and Will, whoā€™s about to start a Masters degree at York, itā€™s about the impact we make from day one. ā€œSeeing that our work makes a difference is a great feeling.ā€

Iā€™m about to start my third and final year at Durham, so for me, the feedback culture at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has been incredibly valuable. I know that when I start my dissertation, Iā€™ll have developed the ability to criticize my own work and think more deeply about how each word on the page makes a difference. Beyond university, thatā€™s an important skill for life!

Even though we didnā€™t know what to expect when we first started our internships from home, itā€™s clear that now, despite the distance between some of us, we all feel proud to be part of the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team.

Want to join us?

If 91³Ō¹ĻĶų sounds like the kind of company you want to be part of too, check out our job vacancies.

This great culture brings a whole host of benefits both to us as engineers, and our users. It enables us to iterate quickly, build the right things at the right times, and deliver real, tangible product improvements week in week out - all without ever compromising on uptime and reliability.

To give one example, we make sure that releasing 91³Ō¹ĻĶų to our users is as easy and robust as possible, and work hard to continuously improve that process. We release to production 2-3 times per day and weā€™re still working to boost that cadence. In this blog post, Iā€™ll dig into the reasons we value being able to release so often, and how we achieve it in practice.

Why is it important to release often?

Both for us and our users, frequent releases deliver a range of advantages.

Short feedback cycles

Short feedback cycles are crucial for enabling a software team to be responsive and agile. The less time it takes to get a change or feature in front of real users, the faster we can get feedback on whether weā€™re going in the right direction. We constantly use this information to reassess, reprioritize and examine our assumptions.

Thereā€™s nothing worse than spending months building a feature and then realizing youā€™ve built something that doesnā€™t quite meet the real-world needs of the people you thought would love it. By building in small slices, and releasing those slices to users for feedback as we go, we make sure weā€™re always doing the most impactful thing possible.

Quicker fixes

Having a high release velocity enables quick fixes. When we notice that somethingā€™s not right, the time taken to release a fix is roughly the sum of:

• the time to identify the issue
• the time to create a fix for the issue
• the time to get that fix into our usersā€™ hands

While itā€™s fairly obvious that the faster we can release, the less time that last bullet point will take, fast releases can also help with identifying and fixing the issue. More on this later.

Forcing us to automate

Releasing multiple times a day soon gets tedious if the process isnā€™t quick and painless. It forces us to make sure we automate as much as possible. This becomes a virtuous cycle: the more we release, the more pressure there is to automate as much as makes sense; and the more automated the process, the more often we release because itā€™s easy.

Automation doesnā€™t just reduce repetitive manual labor and free us up to do more important things. Manual processes are error-prone, but an automated process thatā€™s used multiple times per day becomes battle-tested and trusted. Our release scripts and processes improve incrementally over time, as we learn from mistakes and codify what weā€™ve learned in our automations.

Small releases

Finally, and most importantly, every release is small because thereā€™s less time for us to build up changes and fixes in the pipeline between each release. Small releases, in turn, yield even more benefits:

• Releasing software always involves some risk. But with smaller releases, each individual release carries less risk, and so is less stressful. With fewer changes being made, there are fewer things that can go wrong each time. Over a given time period, weā€™ll make the same changes we would have made with bigger releases, if not more. But handling the changes in smaller chunks makes the risks more manageable and easier to mitigate.
• We talked about quick fixes earlier - a small release means that, if anything goes wrong with the rollout, there are a smaller set of changes to inspect to find the root cause. It also decreases the chance that we introduce multiple related issues in the same release. Some of the most complex situations to untangle are when multiple bugs intersect. By minimizing the chance of this happening, we increase the reliability of our software and make fixing issues easier and faster.

The benefits of releasing frequently really matter to us because we make tools that help teams streamline their own release processes on the Salesforce platform. We practice what we preach. All of the philosophies set out in this blog post are baked into the product that we build. Being at the forefront of best practice in our own release process means that weā€™re well placed to build tools that help our users achieve the same benefits we enjoy.

Who releases?

Anyone on the team. Everyone on the team. We strongly believe itā€™s important to get everyone on the engineering team involved in releases. In fact, we explicitly set a goal for each new starter to run their own release (with help!) in their first week. We all gain from this in a number of ways:

• If everyone runs releases, everyone is invested in making the release process better. We have to make it easy (and safe) enough that we feel comfortable walking someone through it in their first week.
• Because everyone understands the process, itā€™s easier to make quick decisions during a release if we need to, without getting bogged down in explaining context or waiting for someone with more knowledge to become available.
• Weā€™re not reliant on particular people being available to run a release.
• Operational issues that hold up releases cause the whole development team pain, which strongly motivates us all to fix those operational issues quickly.

All of this accelerates/increases our release velocity. The more we empower the whole team to own the release process, the more often we can release.

How do we get changes into production?

How do code changes make it from a developerā€™s machine right through to the point where theyā€™re released to our users? Iā€™ll take you through the process, step by step.

Itā€™s important to note that being able to release on a rapid cadence is as much a cultural problem as a technical one. Most of the things that we do in practice are fairly straightforward - the hard bit is getting buy-in from everyone, at every level of the company, and embedding the process into the way everyone works so that it becomes a habit rather than a conscious effort.

Step 1: Code review

We use a feature branch Git workflow at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų. Changes are implemented on short-lived feature branches. We try not to let these branches live more than a week; many last just a few hours. Once a developer is happy with a set of changes on a particular branch (including writing any appropriate automated tests), they submit a pull request and select someone from the team to review their changes. Before being merged, all code must be approved by at least one other member of the team, and all of the automated tests must pass.

Once the code has been approved, it gets merged straight to the master branch. This branch is our source of truth, and is expected always to be in a state ready to release. If weā€™re not happy to release a change to production, we donā€™t merge it to master. This means that weā€™re always in a position to run a release when we want to.

Step 2: Automated tests and staging deployment

This step is completely automated. The newly updated version of master is picked up by our CI process, which runs all of our automated tests and creates a new build of the product.

We donā€™t normally expect any test failures at this stage, as the tests are also run before merging to master and our branches are short-lived enough that merge problems are rare. However, if there are any problems then a notification is sent to the whole engineering team. Getting the master branch ā€œgreenā€ again then becomes a top priority - until the issue is fixed, we canā€™t release.

Once these tests have passed, the latest build is automatically deployed to our staging environment, which is designed to be as close as possible to our production environment.

Step 3: Manual testing

As soon as a particular change hits staging, the developer that created the pull request in question is notified by our release slackbot. The notification looks something like this:

This is a prompt for the developer to check that everything looks okay with their change on staging. Itā€™s their responsibility to make sure that theyā€™re still happy for the change to be shipped to our users. When theyā€™ve performed whatever manual testing is appropriate, they give the notification a checkmark to show that theyā€™re happy:

Step 4: Pre-checks

When someone wants to run a release, all updates are posted into a dedicated ā€œoperationsā€ Slack channel so that the whole company has visibility. The developer runs a command which prompts our release slackbot to list all of the changes that have been merged since the last time the product was released. The bot automatically tags the authors of those changes, and also includes a checkmark next to each item to indicate whether itā€™s been manually tested by someone (as in the previous step):

If any of the changes havenā€™t yet been manually checked, itā€™s the responsibility of whoever is running the release to make sure any appropriate testing happens before the release starts.

Each item links out to the pull request in question, as useful context for whatā€™s about to be released. The bot also lists any database changes that need to be applied as part of the release, if applicable.

Step 5: The release

Once weā€™re happy with whatā€™s about to be released, the release itself is very straightforward. Thereā€™s a script to run, which asks you which version number you want to deploy. It also posts into the operations channel so that everyone is aware the release is going ahead.

ā€¦and thatā€™s it.

Of course, under the hood, thereā€™s a lot going on! Our infrastructure is orchestrated by Kubernetes, and deployments follow a blue-green strategy: new instances of the app are spun up separately from the instances currently running user workloads, and then once all the new instances are healthy we switch all traffic onto the new instances. Old instances stick around to complete jobs theyā€™re already running, and to enable instant rollback (more on that later.) There are safeguards built in to make sure weā€™re not accidentally trampling any long-running user jobs as part of the release, among other potential pitfalls.

With every past failure, weā€™ve built what weā€™ve learned into the process. The beauty of having an automated process is that we donā€™t have to remember all of this every time - each previous issue has been carefully examined and fixed so that it ²õ³ó“Ē³Ü±ō»å²Ōā€™t happen again. Over time, the scripts and the process get more resilient and more reliable.

What if the release has a problem?

Weā€™ve talked a lot about the safeguards baked into every step of the process - from automated testing, to code review, to final manual testing on the staging environment. But, as we all know, thereā€™s no way to guarantee that our new release will be problem-free. Inevitably, releases will occasionally have some sort of issue.

As a result, itā€™s important that we can respond quickly to and recover from any issue that slips through the cracks. In many cases we can do this before any users even notice a problem.

Finding out somethingā€™s wrong

The first step is to realize something is wrong. As a rule, the faster we can do this, the smaller the impact will be. Ideally, we notice an issue before any users are affected at all.

In general, a sign that somethingā€™s up comes from one of three sources:

• Alerts: we have a wide variety of alerts set up on our production systems, from warnings about low memory or instance crashes to notifications about certain log messages (or a lack of certain log messages) which may indicate a particular issue. Itā€™s important that these alerts have a low rate of false positives to make sure that when theyā€™re raised, people pay attention and investigate.
• Logs: sometimes we notice an issue by seeing something strange in the logs. Occasionally, this is by chance when we were looking for something else. But normally itā€™s because weā€™ve released something that affected a high-risk area of the codebase and we were monitoring the logs carefully to make sure the release was good.
• Customer reports: we have a great relationship with our customers. As a last resort, if anything looks wrong from their perspective and they jump on to the live chat to report it, that request comes straight to a technical member of the team for investigation.

Assessing the situation

Once we suspect thereā€™s an issue with a release, we need to make a decision about how to proceed. In general, the guiding principle is to minimize risk.

Unless we can quickly determine that the issue weā€™ve seen isnā€™t related to the release, our default position is to roll back the release immediately . Because of our blue-green deployment strategy, this is instant. Running one script will redirect all new traffic back to the cluster running the previous build. We make sure to write all of our changes in a way thatā€™s both forwards and backwards-compatible with respect to database schema and client changes, which means we can always feel secure doing this.

Having small releases (are you sensing a theme?!) even helps us here. The fact that each release is fairly small means that the user impact of rolling one version back is also fairly small. If we were rolling back a whole monthā€™s worth of feature updates it might be a different story!

Being able to get quickly and safely back to a state we know to be good is invaluable. It gives us time and space so we can critically assess the situation and make sure we proceed in the best possible direction. And it also means we can immediately mitigate the issue for any users currently online.

Fixing the issue

Our next step is to track down and fix the issue. Once again, this is made easier thanks to smaller releases, as there are fewer changes to inspect. Once weā€™ve made an initial assessment of how difficult the issue will be to fix, we tend to choose one of two approaches:

• If we think itā€™s going to be an easy fix (and, importantly, if itā€™s easy to reproduce the issue to make completely sure it is indeed fixed), we usually just make the fix on top of the current master build and ā€œroll forwardsā€, releasing the new version once itā€™s gone through the release pipeline.
• If itā€™s going to be an involved fix, we donā€™t want to block the release pipeline until we get to the bottom of it, otherwise weā€™ll be in danger of creating a backlog of changes that turns our next release into a big scary one - exactly what weā€™ve been trying to avoid! In this case weā€™ll pull the change that caused the problem out of master, and clear the pipeline by releasing again without the offending change. Once a fix has been written, we can re-merge the original change along with the fix and continue as normal.

Reflecting

We donā€™t stop once weā€™ve fixed the immediate problem, as thereā€™s still a final and important piece of the puzzle to solve. Itā€™s important that we take time to reflect and ask ourselves whether there was anything we could improve about our process as a whole that would have prevented the issue from happening in the first place. Iterative improvement over the whole workflow is the only way to build a truly robust release process.

Constant iteration

Every part of this process is subject to constant iteration. Particularly as we scale the team, we constantly reassess to see if thereā€™s anything we could improve on. Once upon a time (actually not so long ago!), none of the work the slackbot did was automated - we would manually collate a list of changes in each release, and then manually check with each author that they were happy. That worked great with a team of 7, but didnā€™t really scale to an engineering team of 30+.

Iā€™m sure the process will look different again in another two years, but the core principles - automation, small releases, high release velocity, constant improvement - will still be at its heart.

Sound like the kind of team youā€™d like to be a part of? Weā€™re hiring! Check out the careers page for more, or shoot us an email at jobs@gearset.com.

Drafting and submitting our entry to the GPTW contest made us think a lot more about our values and motivations as a company. Weā€™ve always had lots of fun working with a group of incredibly smart, kind and passionate people, dedicated to understanding the needs of our users at a deep level. So entering the GPTW awards was a kind of litmus test for us. How well are we really working as a team? Are we living up to our values? Do others at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų see it the same way? We thought weā€™d take this opportunity to share with you (and any prospective new joiners šŸ‘‹), a little about what makes us tick, and some of what our teammates like about working here.

Setting the highest standard by staying close to users

From the start, 91³Ō¹ĻĶų set out to help the Salesforce community by talking to thousands upon thousands of developers and administrators directly about their DevOps challenges. As a company founded by a group of software engineers, we work with Salesforce teams across the globe to tackle their day-to-day technical problems. Itā€™s a pragmatic and bottom-up approach that comes naturally. We make a real difference to people by solving specific issues as they arise, and assisting teams when theyā€™re ready to take their development processes to the next level.

Key to this approach is our ability to offer our users immediate and focused support. Our Customer Success team is always on hand to solve our usersā€™ problems there and then. The dedicated developers in our Engineering team are ready to jump in at a momentā€™s notice to share their expertise. Similarly, our product development is driven directly by user feedback and the real needs of our users. A culture of trust and transparency is what helps us work constructively with feedback, both from customers and in our own work as a team. And for anyone new to 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of 91³Ō¹ĻĶų in just a few clicks to try it out for yourself - no strings attached.

As 91³Ō¹ĻĶų has grown rapidly, weā€™ve held firm to our values. We trust our teammates, love working together, and share all our knowledge as widely as we can with each other and our customers, as a way of discovering and unlocking valuable new insights. As Kevin Boyle, everyoneā€™s favorite bossman, explains:

What individual Gearcitizens think

Completing GPTWā€™s employee experience survey as part of our entry to the awards was also insightful - itā€™s always one thing to hear what a companyā€™s Marketing team or CEO thinks about the company, and another to hear it from all employees directly. Here are a few of their voices (we havenā€™t added their names because we didnā€™t want to embarrass them - not that they would have minded much):

Thinking about joining the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų team?

If you like the sound of working at 91³Ō¹ĻĶų, weā€™d love to hear from you! Weā€™re always on the lookout for creative, smart and decisive people to fill roles in engineering, sales, marketing, customer support, and in other areas of the business. While we respect skills and experience, above all, weā€™re looking for people with aptitude. If youā€™re willing to learn, work well within teams, and have the right attitude to delivering valuable work promptly, then do check out our careers page. Youā€™re also very welcome to find out more about what itā€™s like working with us every day by chatting to us right now using the live-chat on this page.

You may have already heard about this through our previous blog post or from some of our , but in case you havenā€™t - the Hillside Hackathon project was about a small team of us getting away from the usual hustle and bustle of current projects and user requests we work on in our everyday work lives. We wanted to step away from the usual distractions, take a fresh look at some of the problems our users are facing, and put some new ideas together for exciting ways to solve them.

So thatā€™s what we did. 5 developers, 2 designers and a marketer (myself) hid ourselves away for a week with the aim to spike and prototype a new product feature. We werenā€™t entirely sure on just how much weā€™d be able to achieve in just 5 days, but we were all ready to give it our best shot nonetheless.

Weā€™ve decided to not share exactly what it was that we were working on during the hackathon just yet, but we can say that the project was a complete success, with the team producing an awesome, very functional prototype in just 5 short days. Check out the highlights of the week in the video below, and keep reading for the full account.

Beginning hurdles

Before we started the project, we had to make sure our workspace was ready to go and that the team were all settled in. After travelling down on the Sunday, and excitedly exploring our fabulous home for the week, we got started on setting up our office. Based in the dining room with a long wooden table, we managed to squeeze in 8 computers, 8 monitors, a seemingly endless number of plug adaptors, and finally 8 people. It was tight quarters, but everything worked - and thatā€™s all that mattered.

With Monday morning came the official start of the hackathon, and the arrival of our final team members. The first day (and a fair chunk of Tuesday) were focused on planning out the project in more detail, figuring out how we could overcome the potential blockers with our plan, and subsequently adding and assigning tasks to our Trello board to track exactly what needed to be done.

As a result, the first few days felt the slowest in terms of progress; everyone was getting to grips with exactly what it was they were working on and de-risking some of the more technically challenging aspects and potential issues that could cause problems further down the line (week).

But although the first few days felt slow, these initial steps were crucial to us making sure we could get everything done in time. It was important we didnā€™t rush into big ideas without thinking them through together, and making sure we were all on the same page about what we were building and why.

Picking up speed

By Wednesday, we really began to hit our stride. Weā€™d made it past the initial blockers and started to get excited about seeing the prototype come together. Daily morning catch-ups were a great way of highlighting just how much everyone was getting done each day, seconded by the number of tasks we were getting through on the trello board - after just 3 days the team had submitted 36 PRs, made 266 commits, and written 6738 lines of code.

To keep spirits high, the team were treated to a midweek surprise on Wednesday evening, in the form of a three course meal cooked by Michelin star chef, Paul Barnard. Weā€™d already had some fantastic group meals (Oliā€™s paella in particular stands out), but the meal prepared for us by Paul was absolutely delicious, and just what we needed to keep us going. It was definitely one of our quietest nights around the table while we devoured every bit of food in sight!

The final countdown

As Friday drew closer, the team began to feel the strain of a long week - sniffles began to creep across the room, strepsils were being handed out readily and the tea and coffee supplies had almost run out. We didnā€™t let this get us down though, and instead pushed even harder on the Thursday. We worked solidly all day, and late into the night, but the atmosphere of excitement and camaraderie were enough to keep us going, at least until we got to watch the first complete run through of our now working prototype! This called for a celebratory round of midnight Rocket League.

Friday was the final day of the hackathon and our final chance to get as much done as possible to return the next week with great prototype. We mainly dedicated the day to polishing, testing and seeing what nice-to-haves we could add in the time remaining.

The final rush to make sure we got everything finished up meant the day flew by in a flurry of activity, as well as some surprise birthday cake thanks to my wonderful teammates. By the end of the day we were all pretty shattered, but mostly we were proud of what weā€™d achieved in such a short period of time. We all gathered around one screen to watch the prototype in action, super pleased (and relieved) to see it all working successfully and just quite excited to get it back to the office and show the rest of the team what weā€™d created.

Owing to the state of semi-exhaustion we were all in, we spent the final evening celebrating in a fairly low key manner: chatting, and playing Rocket League for many, many hours.

Plans for the future

Weā€™re thrilled with how the Hillside Hackathon went - we started off with just ideas and in 5 days we managed to build a fairly polished working prototype, as well as having a lot of fun and laughs along the way. Now weā€™re back in the office, work is continuing on the prototype, building on the fantastic foundation we laid on our week away.

We canā€™t wait to show off this new feature so keep your eyes peeled for a future announcement!

In short; weā€™re doing a one-week hackathon in the quiet hills of Berkshire.

Why are we doing this?

In regular day-to-day work, it can be easy to get caught up in user requests and existing projects, which means that big, exciting (and sometimes daunting) ideas get put on the back burner. But as a growing company, itā€™s important to continue to find ways to innovate, and to preserve the spirit of experimentation that helped 91³Ō¹ĻĶų become what it is today. In the past, weā€™ve had great success with the idea of the down-tools week - teams stop working on current projects for a week, take a step back to examine problems our users are facing, and put ideas together for new, exciting, and sometimes wacky ways to solve them. We then reorganise for a week into new teams and work on tackling these problems.

This year, weā€™ve decided to try a new way to bring these challenges and ideas to the foreground; a week away from the usual distractions where new ideas and potential features could get our undivided attention and efforts.

So, after some calendar wrangling and many terrible name suggestions, the Hillside Hackathon was born. A team of 6 developers, 2 designers and a marketer (myself) have been sent to a work-away-from-work week in a lovely cottage in Bisham, to work on spiking new features, with the aim of producing some working prototypes before the week is out!

Ready, set, code!

To make sure we could hit the ground running this morning (Monday the 19th of November), half of us arrived at the cottage yesterday to get the lay of the land and set up all the equipment.

Once weā€™d arrived, and after weā€™d finished marvelling at the size of the bathtubs and the number of living rooms, we unpacked what seemed like a thousand cables and extension leads, and made sure everyoneā€™s computer was up and running. Then, all that was left was to stock the house with provisions, enjoy a relaxing evening and make the most of our comfortable surrounds, before a hard week of non-stop building.

With the morning came the rest of the team, ready to begin our week-long hackathon. With the computers set up, the full team raring to go, and the tea brewed, we kicked off our Hillside Hackathon and we canā€™t wait to see what we can produce in 5 short days.

Want to see how weā€™re getting on?

As this week is dedicated to spiking and producing new prototypes, we might not be announcing any new features immediately. But if youā€™re interested in hearing about our hackathon experience, the joys of living with your teammates for a week, and any little snippets that we can share, keep an eye on our and profiles, and follow the hashtag #hillsidehackathon for updates!

At its core, VSCode is powered by the editor, which handles all of the code editing functionality. Since itā€™s all built on top of browser technology, itā€™s actually possible to use the Monaco editor by itself inside a browser - and in fact, thatā€™s exactly what we do to render most of our code and XML diffs within 91³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Monaco handles things like diff rendering, quick navigation and syntax highlighting for you, but when it came to displaying Apex diffs, there was no Apex syntax highlighter available. Since Java and Apex are syntactically pretty similar, we got away with using the inbuilt Java syntax highlighting for a little while, but we wanted to both improve our product and give back to the open source community that helps build this fantastic editor. So, I decided to take a stab at writing an Apex syntax highlighter and contributing it back to the project.

What does a syntax highlighter do, anyway?

Syntax highlighting requires understanding the code and ā€œtokenizingā€ it. This entails marking which bits of text correspond to different ā€œtoken typesā€, where a token type might be something like ā€œidentifierā€ or ā€œstringā€ or ā€œcommentā€. Each of those token types can then be mapped to a certain colour to provide syntax highlighting. In a lot of editors, those colours can be customised by themes - and the tokenization can also help the editor provide other functionality such as highlighting matching brackets and code folding.

The code/configuration that carries out this tokenization process is sometimes called a tokenizer or a grammar, or even a lexical specification.

How does Monaco do syntax highlighting?

If youā€™re familiar with Salesforceā€™s for VSCode, you might be wondering why I need to create a syntax highlighter for Monaco, given that the plugin provides Apex syntax highlighting.

It turns out that there are actually several ways to implement syntax highlighting in Monaco:

TextMate grammars

TextMate grammars were created for the TextMate editor, but are now used by many editors and are something of a defacto standard when it comes to syntax highlighting. Since so many TextMate grammars exist for so many different languages, when you make a new editor it makes sense to support TextMate grammars for your syntax highlighting. So, in VSCode, Monaco has a module which support TextMate grammars.

Unfortunately this support relies on a native regex library for performance reasons, and therefore the support only works in VSCode, and not when you run Monaco in a browser.

Language servers

Microsoft also has a specification called the (LSP), which can be used to let an editor communicate with a separate server which will provide language-specific features like autocomplete and syntax highlighting.

The Apex Code Editor plugin uses this functionality - it provides a separate Apex Language Server which communicates with VSCode over LSP. Unfortunately, this separate server is written in Java and designed to run locally, so it doesnā€™t make sense in the browser either.

Monarch grammars

Monaco also has its own way of creating syntax highlighters by specifying rules in a JSON format, using a library called Monarch. This library is designed to be efficient (so that it can run fast in a browser environment) - and is the only syntax highlighting method that runs in Monaco in the browser.

Since no Monarch Apex grammar existed, we were stuck when it came to highlighting Apex in the browser.

Creating a Monarch grammar for Apex

The Monaco editor website has a on how to write a Monarch grammar. Not only does it explain the Monarch specification pretty clearly, it also has a playground where you can modify a language definition and see the resulting syntax highlighting applied to some code in real time. The real time editor was invaluable when trying out different things during development.

As mentioned above, in Monarch you provide a series of attributes for your language in a JSON format in order to create a language definition. The main configuration happens within the tokenizer attribute which contains a series of states, and rules. The rules match on the input and tell the tokenizer to perform a certain action - usually to transition into a different state or mark the matched text with a certain token.

The states are needed to keep track of context - the string 4.5 will probably match some sort of number token normally, but it ²õ³ó“Ē³Ü±ō»å²Ōā€™t do so when it appears within a comment.

A starting point

As a novice when it comes to writing language grammars, I would have been a bit lost trying to start from scratch!

Luckily, I had a good jumping off point in the form of the Java Monarch grammar which already exists for Monaco (and which we were already using to highlight our Apex code in 91³Ō¹ĻĶų). Java and Apex are very similar in many ways, so it made sense to copy the existing grammar and modify it to suit some of the differences that Apex has.

One of the ways I went about finding these differences was to grab a fairly diverse set of Apex code from open source repositories on GitHub which I could run the current highlighter on for testing. The Monarch websiteā€™s live playground editor was really useful for this.

One of the things that immediately jumps out when you use a Java highlighter on Apex code is that some of the keywords arenā€™t highlighted - keywords like global, bulk and future donā€™t exist in Java, and so they usually get interpreted as identifiers instead. Merging in the list of Apex keywords immediately improved the results.

Another difference is that Apex is case insensitive, and Java isnā€™t. You can mark Monarch grammars as case insensitive, which sounds like a great solution - unfortunately, it clashed with another feature which I wanted to include. When you set your grammar to be case insensitive, it stops any of your rules discriminating based on the casing of the text (which makes sense).

The problem was, I also wanted to highlight identifiers that started with an uppercase letter differently to those that didnā€™t, because itā€™s a good clue that the identifier is a type rather than a variable name. This rule wasnā€™t possible to write without case sensitivity turned on.

As a compromise, I created a small function which takes all of the keywords and generates some common casing variations (specifically, all uppercase and with the first letter upper cased). This means that the highlighter will correctly match things like SELECT, if and Decimal as keywords, but it wonā€™t match uSiNg or tomORROW. This seemed like a decent compromise to me, but itā€™s not perfect. In particular, PascalCase keywords like TestMethod seem perfectly sensible but wonā€™t be highlighted correctly.

Some other small changes to the Java highlighter which I made included:

• Removing binary, hex and octal numbers (Apex doesnā€™t support them)
• Changing the javadoc tokens to apexdoc tokens

Making sure it works

Every Salesforce developer knows the value of a good test suite - so it was time to make sure the highlighter had a good set of tests to verify the functionality (and help out the next people who come to make improvements).

Tests in the repository basically consist of a set of test inputs and the expected token output. Again, the existing test suite for the Java highlighter was a big help.

Submitting a pull request

Finally, after running through the checklist of things to do when adding a new language, I submitted a with my work.

It was accepted, and is now released in version 0.14.0 of Monaco editor - and itā€™s also now live in the 91³Ō¹ĻĶų app for your Apex code diffs! šŸŽ‰

PRs welcome

Of course, although itā€™s a good starting point, itā€™s not perfect by any means. Hereā€™s a list of things that could do with some improvement:

• SOQL - although lots of SOQL keywords like SELECT and FROM are highlighted correctly the tokenizer wonā€™t recognise SOQL as a different context and therefore the highlighting within SOQL queries isnā€™t perfect
• I didnā€™t manage to find a fully comprehensive list of Apex keywords. Thereā€™s one in the , but some keywords such as switch are marked as ā€œfor future useā€ despite being in use now, and some keywords such as get, and void are missing. It also doesnā€™t include any of the built in types. Because of this, I actually merged this list with the list of keywords from the Java highlighter to get my final list.
• As mentioned above, the highlighter isnā€™t totally case insensitive.
• Some keywords are context dependent - for example, with and sharing are keywords when used defining a class but arenā€™t reserved words and can be used as identifiers in different contexts. I didnā€™t tackle this issue in my first pass - the highlighter simply wonā€™t detect these as keywords.
• Although apexdoc is recognised as a whole block, individual usages of things like @param within the apexdoc block are not parsed separately.

Like I said, itā€™s all open source, so if one of these issues is bugging you and you think you can take a crack at making it better, you can!

Join us!

Come and work in a team where trying new things is the norm! Take a look at our latest engineering jobs if you think 91³Ō¹ĻĶų could be the next step for you.