The Flex Factor with... Sully

Meet Sully, the Bucket Brigade team's backend wizard, as he shines in the spotlight for July's edition of The Flex Factor. Discover more about the diverse challenges he tackles during his day-to-day and the valuable career advice he wishes he had known earlier.

Tell us what you do at Flexciton?

I’m the Bucket Brigade team's backend developer, whereas the others are optimisation engineers, a frontend developer, a product owner, and some riff raff. Though it’s not a hard separation, this means I tend to do the backend work for our team that isn’t very optimisation focused.

What does a typical day look like for you at Flexciton?

Every day starts off with standup during which we are entertained by bad puns by our team scrum lord, Charlie, and acquire strange German words as sprint names from our German team member, Jannik. During stand up, I often say that I think I'll get something done that day, but then have to say I'm not done with it yet at least one additional morning. The rest of the day usually consists of working solo, doing some code reviews, and not going to too many meetings, unlike some colleagues who've made poor life choices and have frequent meetings. I usually leave between 6 and 7 PM, which is okay because I roll into the office pretty late every morning. I also make great use of the free snacks and colas. 

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I like that we have a variety of different kinds of problems to solve. It's engaging and there are many things we need to do and improve so there are always ways to find new challenges.

If you could summarise working at Flexciton in 3 words, what would they be?

Live. Laugh. Optimize (with a z).

What career advice would you give to your younger self? 

Focus on skills that will follow you from role to role and across companies, rather than company or product-specific skills and knowledge.

If you could swap jobs with anyone for a day, who would they be and why?

I’d maybe swap with a fighter pilot. I feel like on the day I’m there I could improvise and manage to get up in the air, have fun, and figure out how the ejector seat works. Since I’m gone the next day I won’t have to deal with the consequences.

Tell us about your best memory at Flexciton?

I had a lot of fun in Albufeira. Though my memory is hazy, I’m pretty sure it was lots of fun. If I have that memory in my subconscious somewhere I bet it is good

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