Life at Ometria: Konrad, Sr. Software Engineer

We chatted with Senior Software Engineer Konrad about joining Ometria and his transition to becoming a Python engineer, and here’s what he had to share.

Tell us a bit about your current role at Ometria?

I’m a Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead, leading the team that is focused on the “WIN” team to acquire new business. My role as a tech lead is to make sure we have an understanding of current and future work in terms of technical discovery and technical implementation. I also liaise with other tech leads on the technical strategy of the company.

What is a project you have enjoyed working on recently?

The biggest thing we recently released were website overlays, which are pop-ups that help our customers with lead acquisition. It was a fun project, and the scope was within a reasonable and achievable amount of time. The work went smoothly, we had clear outcomes, and there was a measurable  impact for our clients. It was a whole-team effort that included the platform team, front-end and back-end teams. It’s a feature the client can use straight away and it’s really rewarding as an engineer to work on something that helps our customers. 

What were you doing before Ometria? 

I worked in a lot of different industries before Ometria. I spent a lot of time in the geospatial industry, working for Ordnance Survey and also worked for a market research company as well as procurement as a software.

I have experience using C#, Python, PHP, some Ruby and Java, although I hadn’t used Python commercially before Ometria.

What made you join Ometria?

I had actually worked with our VP of Engineering, Gareth, and our Engineering Manager, Michal, before and enjoyed working with them. I also loved that Ometria was a startup and it was a place where I felt I could really succeed. The company values also resonate with me.

How was the transition learning Python in a commercial environment? 

It started slow and the onboarding was great because I had a lot of support from the team. I was paired with one of our senior engineers, Sam, which was very helpful. We also use Airtable for onboarding, so you know exactly what  you need to do to complete the onboarding process, and it also helps you better understand the ecosystem. Python is a fun language and simple to pick up if you have been exposed to other languages. Since joining Ometria, I also have exposure to Kubernetes and AWS.

What have you enjoyed most about working at Ometria?

It’s a really great bunch of people and we have phenomenal engineers at Ometria. It’s fun and can be a bit hectic at times because it’s a startup environment, but there’s the right balance of having time to ourselves and having fun as a team.

What piece of advice would you give someone joining Ometria looking to learn Python?

Don’t get discouraged by the complexity of the platform. It is a huge system and there is a lot happening, so take it one step at a time. I started with small tasks to get me up to speed and then began taking on some of the bigger tasks. 

You can learn really good Python here. From my past experiences at different companies, I’ve learned that you can be exposed to good and bad coding practices, but Ometria has a good code base and a solid approach to writing code. You can also learn a lot from each other. It’s been a year and I’m still learning!

If you’re interested in an engineering career at Ometria, we’d love to hear from you. Please check out our careers page www.ometria.com/careers for more information.