This week, we take a look at the day in the life of Engineering Manager - Alex Newby.  

Can you share a bit about your role and responsibilities at the company?

As an Engineering Manager, I work across multiple technical teams to make sure we're building the right things in the right way. I'm part of the tech leadership group that defines processes and standards; I then work with the technical leads of teams to apply and prioritise those things, as well as architecting new systems and identifying and prioritising technical debt. I write quite a lot of documentation and tickets for my teams, and have been known to occasionally write some code as well.

What inspired you to pursue a career in Software Development?

It might be a common story for software developers: I was very interested in computer games as a child and that led me to discover and try software for making such games myself. I downloaded a program with a drag-and-drop interface for game making, but it also had a scripting language underneath and I quickly found that the real power was in the proper programming. 

I also soon learned that programming was fun and interesting in itself, not just as a means to make games, and that realisation set me on the path of becoming a software engineer. As to why I ended up pursuing the path of an Engineering Manager, that was due to a few examples of good managers I had through my career. They showed me how much good one can do from that position and how satisfying it can be to help organise a team to work smoothly together and build something great.

Can you share any skills or knowledge you've gained since joining the company?

Before joining FXC Intelligence, my career was mostly in application development, so I have learned a ton about how data businesses work technically and it has really broadened my horizons on that front. I've also learned a lot about leadership and people management, having stepped more deeply and formally into those areas in this role compared to my previous positions, and I would love to add that there are some people who set great examples in these areas in the organisation!

What aspects of your job do you find most challenging, and how do you overcome them?

Communication in a fully remote team split across several time zones can be difficult, and it's very easy to miss things or end up with an assumption that your colleagues do not share. The best solutions to this, in my experience, are strong processes that make things more predictable and regular for the team, and liberal use of writing things down – whether that be full on documentation writing or just sharing a written summary of what was agreed in a meeting.

What's your favourite part of your job?

I really enjoy the sense of having been effective or productive. This manifests in moments such as the end of a meeting where we've had a complex discussion but everyone is now on the same page, or completing a specification document where everything is thoroughly detailed, well thought-out and the corner cases have been covered. These are the moments of work that I strive for.