This month, we are shining a light on our Head of Front-End Engineering, Brad Davies.
- What is your role at Wise?
I am the Head of Frontend Engineering here at Wise. Put simply – I’m in charge of ensuring our delivery of frontend app & web work is achieved efficiently, on-schedule, and with a high-level of quality for our end-users. As part of that – I am responsible for supporting the engineers within the team and to ensure the general focus & direction of the team is heading in the right direction, whilst maintaining (and improving!) our high-standards from a technical and user point-of-view.
- What does your day-to-day work look like?
A typical day for me will usually involve attending standups for various projects first-thing in the morning, helping to coordinate & plan out work with product owners and backend engineers. I will then speak with the engineers in my team to assign out tasks and ensure they are happy with the work they need to do and that their workload is right, and make sure they have everything they need to get on with their work. Throughout the day there will no doubt be technical support I need to offer – and this can sometimes be a large part of my day. I am also generally the first point of contact across the business for any queries regarding frontend work so will generally tender a few questions per day from across the business. Outside of that – I will generally be doing some tickets and technical work of my own (I promise!).
- What’s the culture like at Wise?
Since I started back in December 2020, I’ve really enjoyed the culture at Wise, and think we’ve done a great job to retain it even as we’ve massively grown and changed offices. From a work-focused perspective, I think we have a great balance between “work” and “play”, and am very happy with the way people are relied upon to get on with their work and are trusted to achieve results – rather than being micromanaged or checked-up on every 10 minutes. The level of flexibility that permeates the whole company is great to see, and the monthly socials we do have also been a perfect way for everyone to let their hair down a bit and socialise away from work, but I’m still bitter I wasn’t able to win at go-karting! (I’ll begrudgingly take my 3rd-place bronze medal).
- What’s special about working at Wise?
For me – it’s been a fantastic opportunity to really focus on the things that are important to me – such as technical progression, supporting & mentoring of other engineers, and being trusted to deliver our work to a high-quality without any unnecessary hindrances. Being trusted to lead the frontend team and support a team of fantastic guys and girls is something I am really enjoying and knowing I have the trust and support of people in the company is a great feeling for me. I also really enjoy working with other skilled engineers to solve the problems we face on a day-to-day basis, and the fact everyone is very easy to get on with and is happy to help, really helps create a lovely work atmosphere.
- How have you grown professionally since working at Wise?
I started here in December 2020 as a middleweight engineer in the frontend team – and in that space of time have moved into a Senior role, then into a Lead Frontend role, until finally now becoming the Head of Frontend Engineering here! It’s been a great journey so far, and a great learning curve for me (not without its challenges!) and something that I am very proud of. Having the trust of my manager and the company as a whole is a great feeling, and I will continue to keep putting the hard work in to ensure continuing success for the company. Being able to continue my own professional development, but also having a hand in helping others progress too, has been fantastic and something I really value.
- What’s your favourite memory since working at Wise?
I think the first time we really started getting the initial MVP product “out there” to end users and seeing users actually using the system, and feedback coming in, was a really great feeling. Knowing the initial big burst of hard work everyone had put in had all been worth it was a great feeling, and gave us the platform for everything that has come since. Those early days (especially when we were all working from home!) had some great times on all-day calls with other engineers, figuring out how we get the whole project built and working.
