BLOG: Developing myself in an awesome team – every day!
I started to work at Scania in 2018, as one of the chosen graduates of the IT Talent programme, with a fresh university degree from the Information, communication and technology programme at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. I joined a team that exposes Scania’s data through APIs to its customers
After three years at Scania, I can see that I have had a chance to explore different technologies. The first role I started was as a front-end developer. For our APIs, we have a web application that gives users a way to integrate Scania’s Data and APIs documentation. This web application was developed in Angular and working with this project, I have learned Angular. Some AWS services were used as S3, DynamoDB, CloudFront, and cloud formation.
After I felt comfortable with the front-end role, I switched to work as a back-end developer, where our APIs are implemented. Our APIs were rest APIs which were developed in .Net core and deployed in AWS. Working as a back-end developer gave me further opportunities to explore the .NET core and use AWS services such as IAM, ECS, Aurora, and many others.
While working as both front-end and back-end developer, I also learned how to use the GitLab DevOps platform. Additionally, to work agile, we use Scrum or Kanban board in Jira for managing tasks. As I count myself as an easily bored person who gets motivated by challenging tasks, I found working as a full stack developer was the right choice for me.
Another task I enjoy is replying to customer queries. Being near customers, to see them use our products gives me satisfaction which motivates me to get up early every morning and start to work. However, not only does being near to customers make me happy, but also to have a close collaboration and contact with our business colleagues that gives us an insight into how our product (APIs) is promoted and sold
How does a normal day look like?
I start my day with a daily pulse meeting. As we use a scrum methodology in my team, we have a meeting of around 30 minutes every morning. I work with a team that consists of a manager, product owner, scrum master, and developers.
We use Jira in the daily pulse meeting, where everyone in my team mentions what they have done yesterday, what they will do today, and if any challenges need help or support. Then I pick my task from Jira and start my work.
We have flexibility on picking tasks in my team, there is no such a rule as “you have to do that and that”. The product owner sets the priority on the epics and then we choose the task we want to work on based on the priority. This way of choosing a task, have a good impact on my daily work development as I can work with a task that I see will develop my skills.
Well, my day of work is not only just writing a code or debugging or fixing issues. But I have some other routines such as 1-1 meetings with my manager, backlog refinement, retrospective, demo, fika, and other meetings.
The 1-1 meeting with my manager has an important impact on my work. As it is the time that I discuss with her/him openly all the issues that I face either with my daily tasks or my teams. I get some advice and help on how I can solve and manage those issues. Moreover,on how I can achieve a balanced life, how I can improve and develop myself. Each year I and my manager have a meeting called personal development, in which I set the goals that I want to achieve through the year. Then in this 1-1 meeting, other things we do are check the progress on those goals and take action.
Developing myself by exploring other areas at Scania
One of my goals was to increase my competence in a front-end role. At Scania, there is a programme called PEP (Personal Enhancement Programme) that allows an employee to develop their competence. You will be still employed in your team, but get a chance at 3 to 6 months to explore some other environment at Scania, and I have ended up in this programme.
There is a team at Scania which works more with front-end development as building web components and many other tasks. This team has announced a place for PEP for any developer within Scania to work as a front-end developer. This is the way how PEP starts. I was interested in this programme and brought it up with my manager. My manager has supported me and did the HR processes then I joined that team for 3 months.
In my PEP time, I had an awesome time. As I got new challenges, new technologies, and colleagues. This programme has helped me to increase my competence in the front-end role but also to explore Scania products and try a new way of working and increase my networking.
This is my team!
If we take look at my awesome team, we are a team from four different countries which means different cultures. Also, we all have different experiences, ages, and gender.
At the time I am writing my blog we consisted of six males and three females. Therefore, it was not difficult working with this team as a junior developer, at the beginning of my journey with a different background and culture. This is because the team was already excellent at working as a team regardless of different cultures, backgrounds, and professional experience.
They have not treated me as a junior, but they gave me tasks as they would take for themselves. It made my day easier, feeling appreciated, and rewarded in the team. That motivates me to come to work, explore more knowledge and develop my skills.
The Future at Scania for me
Well, this is not the end of being a full-stack developer at Scania for me, as I can see there are more areas still to explore at Scania.
My next goals are to work on hardware as I am interested in embedded system area. Also, machine learning and artificial intelligence, which I can already see the opportunity for that at Scania.
