Over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time talking to software engineers about joining our growing team at Luna Connect. And it’s got me thinking about my own career and the amazing opportunities I’ve had, from working alongside inspiring colleagues to managers who pushed me out of my comfort zone or gave me space to try new things.
What really stands out for me was the first project I worked on when I graduated. I finished college and joined HP as a graduate software engineer. HP was one of the largest tech companies in the world at the time and an engineering company at heart.
With its legendary tagline, “Invent”, innovation was a core value in everything we did. I joined a small R&D team creating a new product to identify and monitor millions of hardware devices remotely, this was in the days before Cloud, Big Data, IoT and AI were a thing, and every day was a new challenge. It was a complex business problem and we were pushing every tool and framework we used to their limit. I was just out of college and now I was part of a team building a new product and working with the latest technologies. This early project shaped how I’ve worked ever since.
I’ve also been thinking about what made that project so great and how it has influenced the way we work at Luna Connect today,
- be curious, understand the business problem intimately and where technology adds real value, and where it doesn’t. B2B product development gives you the opportunity to work closely with your customers, take it.
- get comfortable being out of your depth, don’t be afraid to take on the big challenges that will have a huge impact. If you’re not doing something that scares you (a little bit), maybe you have some more to give.
- be the techy in the room, embrace your nerdy side and use your knowledge of, and passion for, the latest technologies to disrupt the traditional way of doing things. Tech isn’t always the answer, but don’t let others make that decision for you, if you believe in something take ownership of it and try.
- work with great people, surround yourself with a team that works together to deliver a vision, if you work with people who demonstrate these qualities you will achieve amazing things
As we grow the team at Luna Connect to create a technology platform that delivers the future of digital financial services, these learnings and guiding principles have shaped how we think about our product and growing our team.
If you’d like to learn more about Luna Connect and what we are building, check out our Careers Page.