Meet Sam, our Web Developer

Our Marketing team is at the heart of helping Tide grow. Voice of Tide to our members – this team includes performance and product marketing, Community and Partnerships. We’d love for you to meet the people behind the Marketing team – meet our Web Developer, Sam.

👋 Hey Sam! Introduce yourself in a sentence.

I’m Sam (or Samuel if I’m in trouble) – I’m an Australian living in London and a Web Developer at Tide.

What’s your background?

I grew up on the sunny New South Wales Central Coast, studied Information Technology and Digital Media at The University of Newcastle, and started my career in web development in Newcastle, before moving to Sydney, working as a web developer for a few digital agencies, then starting and running my own retail business and just recently moving to London.

How did you cross paths with Tide?

I’d never heard of Tide prior to coming to the UK, but I’ve experienced a high street bank in London and signing up with a bank that will remain nameless was incredibly bureaucratic and took me several weeks and included 3 branch visits. I liked that Tide is breaking that mould.

What were you doing before joining Tide?

At the end of 2013, I’d been working as a web developer for 5 years but put it on hold in order to start my own business in Sydney. It was a retail enterprise selling homebrewing supplies and running beer brewing masterclasses, called The Hop + Grain Brew Store.

I had brewed beer as a hobby for quite a few years and decided I wanted to try to make a profession of it. I had absolutely no experience in retail so it was a steep learning curve and a lot of hard work, but it went well and after a year we moved from a small shop to a large warehouse premises and ramped up our e-commerce offering. I managed all aspects of the business, including financials, inventory and stock, advertising, hiring and training staff etc. I also got my hands dirty with shopfitting, customer service, running events and of course developed the website. All up I ran the business for about 4 ½ years but eventually needed a change of scene so I sold the business and moved to the UK.

Any advice for entrepreneurs to be?

So much! I actually wrote a blogpost about it here.

What’s your typical working day here?

There’s so much going on simultaneously here at Tide that I end up meeting with a lot of different stakeholders. I’m currently working on improving the sign-up process for new members and making the Tide website faster and easier to use. If you’re reading this, then you’re looking at a product that I’ve been working on 🙂

What’s your favourite Tide feature?

I love that you can sign in to your Tide account on Web, using a QR code and the Tide app. So much faster and easier than having to remember an account number and using a card reader! Also, the card itself looks nice and feels like a Christmas present when you receive it.

What’s the most interesting challenge you’ve came across since you joined Tide?

Making different systems talk to each other. We just built a new sign-up page that has to talk to Facebook and Google analytics, so that we know if new members are responding well to the marketing that we’re showing them. There are lots of moving parts and it’s been interesting making it all work.

What’s your favourite desk snack?

Coffee. Does that count as a snack?

What’s your hidden talent?

Brewing beer! Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve done quite a lot of beer brewing and like to think I know my way around producing quite a good beer.

When you’re not at Tide, what’s your favourite thing to do?

I like to travel, ride my motorbike (which is back home in Australia) and cook needlessly complex dishes.