Meet William, our Lead Java Engineer in Business Services

Our Back End Engineering team builds and maintains the Tide app, which our members use every day. We’d love for you to meet the people behind the team – so here’s William, our Lead Java Engineer in Business Services.

👋Hey William! Introduce yourself in a sentence 

Hi, I’m William, I’m one of the lead engineers in Tide’s Back End team. 

What’s your background?

My background is in software engineering and AI. I started as a Java engineer at a startup that produced natural language. I spent years going to different businesses, understanding their data, and turning it into human readable text. 

What made you want to join Tide?

I got interested when I saw how Tide was addressing a clear gap in the market. I joined when I saw the culture and met the people working here. It also helps that there’s a food market opposite the office… 

How would you explain your role to someone who isn’t familiar with your area?

I work in the business services team, which covers all of the features that separate a business bank account from a regular current account. That means everything from expenses, to accounting, to payroll. 

I lead the back-end part of business services. We build the underlying platform behind all of our different apps. My job is to make sure the other developers are as productive as possible. That means my time is spent designing systems, making sure everyone knows what is going on, and occasionally writing a bit of code!

Working at Tide is incredibly fast paced. How do you stay ahead in your field?

The best way to learn about advances in tech is to put them into practice. Luckily at Tide we get the chance to use the latest tech stack, with plenty of smart people to learn from. I also love working on a good hobby project, from map generation to joke telling robots! 🤖

What’s the most interesting challenge you’ve come across since joining Tide?

I should say something techy here, because there are plenty of interesting things we’re building, but the biggest challenge has definitely been building up the team. Tide is scaling up massively. Since day one I’ve been looking at how we can get more developers, interviewing them, and getting them started. Growing so fast is a huge challenge, but a good one to have.

What are you looking forward to most this year? 

Tide-wise, it’s going to have to be our new expenses feature. It’s been a great project to work on and it’s looking very promising. I’ve seen my dad sifting through a shoebox of receipts way too many times, so I know just how much time it can save our members. 

I’m going to be a huge nerd here. Personally, I’m most looking forward to a talk I’m doing soon about computational humour. Any chance to make a lot of bad jokes… 

Can you describe your team in 3 words?

No. It would take a lot more than that to do them justice!

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

If I’m not in front of a computer, you can probably find me exploring. That might mean I’m out for a hike 🥾, in a random country, or trying to find something new and exciting to eat. Ideally all three. 

Rejected answers for 👋Hey William! Introduce yourself in a sentence :

Hi, I’m William and I spent a week of my life dressing up as a strange elephant man with brooms for arms.
Hi, I’m William and I like giving sarcastic answers to interviews.
Hi, I’m William and I’m pathologically incapable of finding photos of myself. 
Hi, I’m William and I’ve written about 20 versions of this same sentence.
Hi, I’m William and when I tried cleaning my flat I created mustard gas.
Hi, I’m William. I’m limited to one sentence so that’s all you’re getting.