The biggest thing I did in 2021
Earlier this year I decided to move on from Zone after 5 and a half years.
Some things that will stick with me:
- Almost failing to turn up on the first day! The meeting room I was told to meet at for my induction shares its name with a hotel and meeting space on the other side of town. It feels very silly to me now, but at the time I agonised over where to go before correctly deciding that the office was the safest bet.
- Building the Gatwick Airport Terminal Finder - this was one of the first projects I worked on during my frontend rotation, and a year and a half later I actually got to use it on my way to a holiday in Tokyo! It's still the only thing I've built that I've personally had a chance to use for real. It's a bit ropey, but it does the job and I'm still proud of it.
- The Barratt Developments Replatform - this was an enormous bit of work but it made a big difference. We exceeded our conversion rate target, but more importantly we did it the right way - by building a website that was faster, easier to use, and more accessible.
- A trip to Ashton Court with the Electrolux team for a game of disc golf. This was during last Summer when things had started opening up after the first lockdown. It was lovely seeing people again and the weather turned out nice.
- Innumerable amazing lunches with the Wednesday Lunch and Friday Burger crews!
It had its ups and downs, like any job, but the teams I worked on were always incredibly supportive and looked out for each other. Everybody always says it's about the people when they do these posts, but it's true, and I think it would've been a lot harder to leave if I was still going into the office every day and seeing people!
I left to take an amazing opportunity at the Government Digital Service. I'm working on a team called Collecting Information from Users (CIFU, pronounced sea-foo), which is looking at how we can make all forms on GOV.UK accessible, easy to use, and quick to process. I'm planning on writing a longer post in May looking back on my first year on the job, but so far I'm loving it!
If you want to see the other stuff I did and enjoyed in 2021, check out my 2021 roundup