First contact

I came to know about TenTwentyFour¹⁰²⁴ while looking for a job. Being fresh out of school, I tried to concentrate on companies that could help me become a better developer, because I know that my diploma is not an end in itself, but only the beginning of a long journey. I stumbled upon a web developer job ad that instantly caught my attention.

A company named 1024 is looking for a junior web-developing geek type - hey, that’s me - interested in “writing software that works exactly as intended”, willing to learn and with a strong interest in up-to-date webdev techniques. Having had difficulties in the past with the reliability of the code I wrote, I figured that joining a company that makes it their primary goal to deliver quality software was the logical next step to make progress in my career.

I had heard about TDD, BDD and the rest, sure. It’s hard to be on the Internet these days and not read about it. But I had never had the opportunity to try them in any real project. I was used to work by myself, focused on getting results, because I knew how to do that well. There’s never been someone I could refer to, so I could always only rely on myself to get the job done. The downside to this is in the way I approached testing. It was not really well-thought, and fixing errors prove to be very stressful sometimes. Needless to say, I wanted the unnecessary pressure induced by the way I worked to disappear. I wanted to focus more on getting the job done, less about how to avoid being scolded at by the customer because of another regression introduced by my latest changes.

The environment

A week or two after having applied for the job, I received a cordial answer which invited to meet David and Tom in their office for a job interview. The interview itself was great. I got the opportunity to make them get to know me as I wanted them to, and also to express what I expected from my new job. I also got a live confirmation that my potential new job would be exactly as advertized on their website.

• Flexible, tech-geek-friendly startup environment ? Check.
• Multi-cultural, english-speaking workspace ? Check.
• Flat no-nonsense management ? Check.

This job was exactly conform to what I wished it would be.

After my first few days on the job, I noticed that when one is in trouble, he can always count on his teammates to help him find a solution to his problem. I learnt that I should never be afraid to ask. TenTwentyFour¹⁰²⁴ is no place for a lonesome, know-all development cowboy that acts alone and doesn’t need anybody’s help. Everybody’s always modest and reasonably open for discussion. We all know we’re not perfect, and that is to me one of the greatest advantages of how the company’s run.

The challenges

It’s already been a couple of months since I joined TenTwentyFour¹⁰²⁴, and I can’t say it’s been easy. I’ve been asked to entirely rethink the way I envision software engineering. I’ve jumped on several different project to write patch to nerve-wracking software bugs, added important features to them, all while educating myself on the tools we’re using every day. Learning how to collaborate on a given project has proven to be very enriching, and even if I’m not quite there yet, particularly with all of Git’s subtleties, I can say it’s very pleasing to feel like you’re doing things the right way. If you have the opportunity to be involved with 1024 in any way, I can only recommend you to do it.