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Work experience at DeadHappy

During my time as a work experience student at DeadHappy, I worked in social media learning about and participating in the promotion of the business on a variety of platforms.

I began the first day with an observation of the Wednesday Wake which showed me some of the practices used in the company and set me up for the introduction to DeadHappy which was next. We were given a tour of the office then sat down to go through the core values and foundation of what the company is about. This first day I had less to do than the other days as it was more about getting used to the environment and learning about the message and aims but I enjoyed this as I was eased into the work and could take my time with the tasks set. I began work with Kate in the afternoon, looking at the deathwishes to see if I could find some to post to the socials. Using a personalised company platform, I was able to search through all of the deathwishes for keywords and choose some ready for day 2 in addition to filming and planning some tiktoks.

On day 2, I started off by editing and posting the tiktok made on day one  then carried on with filming the second tiktok that I had planned. This took up a fair amount of time as I had to sort out all the different locations for filming but I had guidance from Kate so there were very few issues. After this, I met up with Nik from the tech team to go through the security on the computer provided and learn how to download new apps that I may need for certain tasks specific to social media work. I was then left to independently work on a blog with a topic of my choosing – new ways to scatter ashes. Even after I had finished at Deadhappy for the day, I was eager to keep working on the blog and editing the tiktok when I got home.

My last day was just as informative and enjoyable as the others, ending my experience at DeadHappy on a high note. I made use of Zoom more frequently as very few people were in the office which, even though I was nervous about, went very well. I talked to Eddie from the growth team about the brand and how it is different from business. This was interesting and even though we ran out of time to look at partnerships that the company could make, I was glad to be able to learn about the thought process behind the scenes. I posted the tiktok that I had edited at home and then talked to Kate about using Canva and Photoshop to create posts for Facebook and Instagram. This was definitely one of the more challenging things that I completed over the three days as I had some issues using the software but after some help from Kate, I managed to successfully complete two posts (the first of which was immediately uploaded). Lastly, I finished my blog on scattering ashes after a round of edits and completed my time at DeadHappy.

Working at DeadHappy was a wonderful experience that I would definitely recommend for other students. I loved every second and I think that even though it is different to most workplaces, the progressive nature and unrestrictive values lend themselves to the fun yet productive atmosphere. I felt that my views aligned with those of the company and this allowed me to cooperate easily with those I worked with and feel like one of the team so that I could really see what it is like to be in a professional workplace. Thanks again so much to the DeadHappy team for letting me work there and making my experience so amazing.

Work experience at DeadHappy

On my first day at Deadhappy, I was immediately welcomed into the workplace by so many nice people and felt right at home. I observed the Wednesday Wake, got warmly introduced to the company and spent the first day learning about Deadhappy itself and the Deadtechy guys I would be working with. I was never ignored or left to figure things out myself, everyone was happy to assist me and give me a quiet, calm place to work and chat. Learning about Deadhappy’s values, website and workers was a great experience, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when learning about the lack of strict rules! As someone who has anxiety, I was very nervous that I wouldn’t fit in, or do something wrong that didn’t fit with the culture there, but Deadhappy made it clear that it was nothing to worry about. I’m bad at holding conversations and keeping eye contact, but I think the kindness shown by everyone there made me much more confident and comfortable.

On my second day, I met with Bal and I got to observe meetings he attended as well as work on the website itself. We went through the architecture of Deadhappy and I got to meet the people he was working on his current mission with. He was patient and took the time to explain everything to me, as I didn’t understand much at all. Before, I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to complete the tasks he gave me because I don’t learn Javascript at school, but Bal gave me resources to teach myself the basics and taught me a lot himself. Working with him was a pleasure, and I feel like we spoke as equals and not like a teacher to a student. It was nice to be treated the same as everyone else and gave me a healthy experience in the workplace. We worked on a small addition to the website’s account-creating system, but it was important and helped me learn how to do some front and back-line coding. 

Even though my third day was my last, it was just as good as all the others (maybe even the best). I got to join in on the annual Tech Showcase and display the work me and Bal had completed the day before to a large group of people and gained their support and feedback. We then spent time working to get our mini project pushed out. This was interesting viewing how things were put onto the actual website, and got me involved. I spent the rest of the day meeting up with tech members from Deadhappy and learning about their career journeys while asking questions and receiving feedback and tips. I got plenty of free time to spend working on personal projects (like this blog) and was never rushed, stressed or anxious. Working at Deadhappy was fun and challenging, as well as uber chill. 

Overall, I don’t think it could have been any better. I’m very thankful for this opportunity and was never disappointed. I learned key communication, coding, and teamwork skills, and got to have a great experience in a lively work environment. I can’t put into words how good the culture is at Deadhappy, everyone gets along very well and any problems no matter what they are are solved quickly and efficiently. I definitely recommend Deadhappy to anyone interested, no matter how much or how little skills you have in the field of work you want to go into.

Introducing startup businesses! 

I had the opportunity to have my placement year with DeadHappy, a startup. I was doing part-time work for around Cyber Security accreditations, and here are my thoughts about it.

 

The fast paced chaotic environment

I started my internship as a Junior Developer looking to do some coding on the platforms but quickly moved on to being a DevOps Engineer and then a Data Engineer (even though I had no clue about data, and honestly still don’t). Hopping around led me to believe that in a startup, the job description doesn’t really matter and I probably wasn’t going to be doing only one thing for the rest of my placement. This was nothing like my life at university where I had weeks upon weeks to complete a project. Releases were going out more often than I was having breakfast, and the small tech team was working like a well-oiled machine, showing the true definition of teamwork, which I couldn’t really see in my academic life, even in group assignments.

How does my business work

Startups are great for another thing – business context. I wasn’t just assigned a task to do, I knew why I was doing it and thought more about the end result and how it solves the problem presented. The metrics, which led to the decisions I was part of, were there for everyone to see and discuss. While it might not be for everyone, I found it insightful to know about the origin of our product, the live data we receive and the future business partnerships. Being involved (even only as a listener) in the non-tech side of things is something I recommend other students do as well while on placement. 

 

Culture

This is probably one of my favorite parts about working in a startup – I can really feel the culture of the business and it’s not something that people just talked about during my onboarding and then never mentioned again. My colleagues are also my friends – yes, all of them – no one is just PersonFromMarketing#1 that I just see every now and then but never talk to. Everyone is a joy to work with because of one simple reason: they give a sh!t, which leads me to the final thing to consider when debating whether to apply for a placement in a startup or not. 

These kinds of businesses are really passionate about their idea, the problem they are trying to solve is the reason they exist. If you don’t care about what they’re trying to do and just want a 9-17 internship, it might not be your place. 

If you take the red pill and choose to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, you might be in for a backstage view of one hell of a show!

I hope this blog has unveiled a new perspective regarding your future placement. Good luck and remember: “A good engineer is always learning!”

Speed

My startup adventure started as a fully remote endeavour in early 2021, a little before remote working became the norm. There were no long onboarding processes, no one was talking at me about the short-term plan or long-term business vision over a board room table. Instead, I dove right in, meeting most of the team by day two and making myself comfortable submitting merge requests. People had lots of ideas, and there was never any shortage of work, so we had to be ruthless when it came to prioritising. I was constantly learning new things from cloud infrastructure to new ways of building stuff. My GitLab contributions shows a fast-paced world:

Contributions I made in the last year.

Coming from an environment of large-scale organisations it felt different; the best way for me to describe it is being on a speed boat compared to a cruise ship. It is a fun place to be.

Change

A startup will usually be a smaller sized company than what you are used to, so the work you are doing plays a huge part in the growth of the company. Hence, your ideas are just as, if not more, valuable. Suddenly, your work goes from being a small part of a larger goal to being the ACTUAL goal.

Knowledge

This is one of the biggest advantages of working at a small company. When decisions need to be made about what to focus on next, we group up to prioritise the work as a team. I learned a lot about growing a business, hiring, and creating technical roadmaps because people are willing to have these discussions with one and other, whereas in a larger organisation I did not have the opportunity to do so.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Next

Here’s for the most exciting bit (for me, at least): we are on this, journey together. Being part of a great team where we all look towards the same goal, makes we look forward to the times ahead and help the business grown. Having never been part of a journey like this, I plan to embrace it and learn as much as I can while helping others learn as well.

Summary

If you have the opportunity to join a startup give it a go, take the leap! In my experience, it can only help you to grow, learn and become better at what you do.

Back to the future

In some ways, my previous role as a Director of Engineering at a large comparison business couldn’t be more opposite to what I am doing now when considering scale, org size, and availability of funding; yet as a small team at DeadHappy, we have managed to achieve an astonishing amount in the last 2 years (with a pandemic thrown in the middle).

On reflection, there are many reasons for those achievements, most notably the capability of our team enabled by our self-managing culture and values. For this blog, I’ve decided to focus on the importance of Intentional Balance. By this I mean, being cognisant of where your company is in its growth stage and carefully balancing the decisions you take in the areas of people, process, and technology. This is so important when you realise the impact of your decisions on sensitivities of cash runways, getting features live to customers and, securing the next round of funding. All of that while keeping in mind team members’ well-being.

Below, I discuss 7 areas that I have found as worthy of applying intentional balance to (disclaimer: we are not balancing all of these perfectly) 


diagram of intentional balances


Intentional Balance #1:

Fixed versus Flex

That which yields is not always weak.” – Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Dart

I really value and enjoy working with a core of permanent team members who are fully invested in DeadHappy’s vision of changing attitudes to death. The reality of a startup is that you want to ensure you have enough flexibility in your tech team to allow you to grow and shrink in line with the ebb and flow of cash and importantly ensure that your permanent team members can feel stability in their jobs. I have found it very useful to utilise a blend of permanent and contract team members through partnering with a supportive Near Shorer who helped us to rapidly grow the team and deliver some big projects and then conversely shrink their team when we needed it to happen quickly. Additionally, it is a fantastic way to bring in instant expertise in an area that might not have yet matured in your team.


Intentional Balance #2:

Perfection versus Pragmatism

Pure pragmatism can’t imagine a bold future. Pure idealism can’t get anything done. It is the delicate blend of both that drives innovation” – Simon Sinek

We have been careful to prioritise shipping new features to customers over achieving absolute perfection, and very early on we even tolerated a certain level of bugs slipping through. For example, is it really important that we have the most polished, pixel-perfect UX? Will the customer care or even notice? Instead, asking ourselves: what value will this add? This approach has the cumulative benefit of delivering a lot of value to our customers over time and means we can be agile and productive. This is greatly helped by being brutal on prioritising and not being afraid to say “no” or “not now”. Remember there are still red lines, e.g. don’t compromise on security if you can avoid it.


Intentional Balance #3:

Build versus Buy

Early on in our evolution our team agreed on a principle of build core and buy commodity. This means that we focus our engineers on those areas of the platform which can be constituted as our core product or delivering our IP / USP and we integrate best of breed third-party tools for functions where others have done it better than we ever could (e.g. Payments, Content Management and Cloud Infrastructure ). Certain functions might eventually be brought in house (at the right time). This principle has proved really useful given that we have a small team but you do need to ensure you account for assigning some of your team’s time to support the integration of these tools.


Intentional Balance #4:

Manual versus Automated

“You’re either the one that creates the automation or you’re getting automated”  – Tom Preston-Werner

We built a collaborative DevOps culture into our team’s fabric from the start and our DevOps engineers’ mission is to automate themselves out of a job. They focus on continually finding things to automate and assisting other team members if they are repeating manual processes more than a handful of times. This has genuinely helped us to keep the team lean and yet still achieve a lot.

In our very early stages, we spent a chunk of time automating our pipelines and building our Infrastructure as code. Since then we have continued to automate where we can including things like backups, automated testing, and some system anomaly detection and alerting. We are by no means near done and will never be. 

In all of this, I agree with Bill Gates’ observation that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”, so you need to be mindful about what you choose to automate.


Intentional Balance #5:

Hands-On versus Hands-Off

Leaders help people to see themselves as better than they are.” – Jim Rohn

In my last role, I spent little time with my sleeves rolled up, and most of my time in meetings. In our current stage at DeadHappy,, we all have to muck in to get the job done and I have found myself involved in a level of detail that I haven’t done for years. It has been equally invigorating and challenging to get more technical again. However, I have been careful to create the space for the tech team to have the autonomy they need to do their job and to grow. My approach with them has been to provide context and offer direction and then get out of their way. Our value, “you’re not a child” embeds this approach in the business. With this, I need to be prepared to jump in as needed to help the team remove blockers or fill a gap if someone is not available. It is a tricky balance but both sides of the equation are important to ensure things like employee growth. An ex-colleague of mine used to say that part of our job was to remove every excuse from our teams to be able to do their job and I think I agree with that.


Intentional Balance #6:

“Too little” versus “Too much”

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Steve Jobs

Whether it is architecture, software, an org structure, or a process; it is very easy to find yourself over-engineering things, and in the early stages of a start-up this can be fatal. This applies to the way you organise the team, in our case we started with what was an over-engineered team structure and full scrum processes for what was really a simple product and small team, and we found that it quite quickly got in the way of agility. So we scaled it back,  removing a few roles to be reinstated later as well as cutting back the agile process to be as lean as possible. Always keeping one eye on future scaling, we use regular team retrospectives to highlight if and when we need the next specialist role (e.g. test engineers) or a process improvement and we bring them in with intentionality.  In many ways, this is about applying an agile philosophy to growing the organisation, starting with a Minimum Viable Team and then growing based on real data and experience.


Intentional Balance #7:

My needs versus business needs

“You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.” – Unknown Author

Our value, “people over business” was introduced to encourage people to prioritise their mental and physical health sufficiently so that they have the spare capacity to be “on it” when they are undertaking work activities and the same when engaging in personal activities. We have no rules on working hours or leave, and we trust our team to balance their time and activities accordingly and, unsurprisingly, they do. 

When we asked employees what they thought this value meant, one person provided this elegant example: “if you need a haircut, go and get the haircut”. This principle has served us all well, particularly through the Covid lockdowns, and it is the first organisation where I have worked where I don’t often feel guilty for not working horrific hours to prove that I am adding value. With one google search, you can find hundreds of articles in which 5% and 10% of failed start-ups cited employee burnout as their reason for failure.


No compromise on values and culture

“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” – Mahatma Gandhi

This is one area in which we don’t balance or compromise. In the very early days of DeadHappy a small group of us spent many days painstakingly debating and articulating what culture we desired in DeadHappy and what our values would be to seed and grow this culture. We don’t compromise on these and we aim never to. We have created an environment of high autonomy, low hierarchy, supporting self-managing employees to do their best job.  We are proud of this and we will keep working to improve it, ironing out the creases and ensuring that we can make it scale as we grow. Each new employee adds to our culture and changes it for the better but our values still remain a common thread as we grow.

 

Go forward and keep growing

Whilst I have focussed on these 7 areas, every business will have their own unique challenges and priorities. Nevertheless, the idea of intentional balance can be useful to help you and the teams surf the unending cycle of chaos and reorganisation (we think the word “Chaorder” best describes this) in a business that is in its development stages.  Working in a start-up has already been an incredible learning opportunity for me, and an unlearning opportunity. There are  many things that one would automatically assume to be a ‘must-have’ in a big organisation that aren’t right for an early stage start-up and this requires some careful balancing and knowing when the right time is to introduce those best practices around people, process or technology. I also have a strong sense that I may well challenge myself to resist fully shifting the balance to the far end of the scale in certain areas.