Our Technology team supports the growth of FXC through the development and maintenance of systems and applications that FXC requires to provide its products and services.

As well as new development, the technology department supports the operational aspect of FXC, ensuring that all of its systems are available and meet the required service levels.

In this blog post, we meet some of the team that make up our very talented Technology department.

Liz Collier-Harrison - Head of Delivery

Who is Liz at FXC?

I’m our Head of Delivery here at FXC, as well as our resident agile and process geek!

My days can be a real mix of supporting our delivery teams with their challenges, ensuring the different departments are collaborating effectively and making sure we are planning and executing our plans each quarter.

What do you do outside of your 9-5?

As a complete petrolhead you’ll often find me at car events, at track days or on my sim rig.

When I’m not indulging in my passion for all things automotive I love to spend time watching films, dining out with my wife or enjoying a good glass of wine (sometimes more than one!)

If you were to host a dinner party and could invite 2 guests, dead or alive - who would it be?

Given how much of a petrolhead I am I’d have to go for my all time two favourite drivers…

Colin McRae - my absolute hero and inspiration, he really did live by the motto of ‘if in doubt, flat out!’

Ken Block - The creator of Gymkhana!

Alex Newby - Engineering Manager

Who is Alex at FXC?

I'm an engineering manager at FXC. I've been associated with quite a few teams since I joined, but going forward it looks like I'll be working most closely with our user-facing teams.

In my role I spend time defining processes and standards and working on the design and architecture of our systems. I also capture and prioritise tech debt and coordinate feature work across teams. I write quite a lot of documentation, JIRA tickets and sometimes I even get to write a little bit of code.

What do you do outside of your 9-5?

Most of my time outside of work is taken up by my three small children and wonderful wife, who all mean the world to me.

When I do get some time for myself, I have at least a dozen hobbies to pursue. Most of them are creative: I write science fiction (nothing published yet but one day…), play bass guitar, dabble in composing/producing music, and I sometime build and paint miniatures. Also Lego.

I also have a competitive impulse that I usually channel to some game. I achieved quite a high rank in SC2 and terrorised the UK Magic: the Gathering scene for a while. These days I am playing Pokémon Showdown.

If you were to host a dinner party and could invite 2 guests, dead or alive - who would it be?

I’ve love to speak to Frank Herbert about how he did the world-building for the incredible universe of his Dune novels.

And then I think I’d invite David Hume. I spent a lot of time studying and analysing his writing at university and now I can’t help but wish I could ask him some questions about his work directly!

Ekaterina Semkina - Senior Technical Business Analyst

Who is Ekaterina at FXC?

I am a Senior Business Analyst at FXC. My role is to support various teams with analysis and requirements, help structure things, find solutions to different challenges and problems, and find the right information and people. I can also sometimes play Scrum Master, “Pings Guru”, and QA.

What do you do outside of your 9-5?

In short, I am constantly putting myself outside my comfort zone and then trying to build it again. I call it 'growth'.

In between, I am living my expat life ironically, traveling, reading books (philosophy/history), organising wine-tasting events, and even cooking and baking. In the past, you could find me doing various hobbies: singing and playing piano (a little bit), playing tennis, and learning German.

If you were to host a dinner party and could invite 2 guests, dead or alive - who would it be?

Jack White - because he has shaped my music taste and was my inspiration for starting playing guitar.

J.K Rowling - I am not a huge HP fan, but I have thousands of questions.

Vlad Goncharov - Full Stack Developer

Who is Vlad at FXC?

I’m a full-stack engineer, which provides a full cycle of development process. I work in the Internal Tools (INT) department with a great team. Together we develop and maintain such projects: Data Collection, Data Management, Data Validation. 

In my usual day, I do technical jobs like the development of new features, performance optimisation, refactoring to improve code readability and scalability for the future, bug fixing, UI improvement as well as research of possible solutions.

What do you do outside of your 9-5?

Sometimes I do swing trading. I am thinking about creating trading automation with PineScript. Also as a programmer, I like to know about new software technologies and investigate the market of solutions, tools, and innovations.

In short, most of my time is spent on something boring, such as economics, finance, politics, or programming. Despite their complexity, these subjects satisfy my passion for understanding the mechanisms that drive our world and digital landscape.

If you were to host a dinner party and could invite 2 guests, dead or alive - who would it be?

Mira Nuata - Engineering Manager

Who is Mira at FXC?

Nominally i’m a senior data engineering manager, but in practice i’m curious about all data-related aspects of FXC. 

What do you do outside of your 9-5?

I have 5 cats at home, and periodically have to take care of some extra strays, so this covers a lot of time outside 9-5.