Every month at Increasingly we honour our most-voted employee with the Culture Champion award. To be in the running for this award, our employees are voted against our core values; quality, learn, help, win, ownership and delight.

Sindhu our Back-end Team Lead and Alfridi, one of our Back-end Developers both won earlier this year so we decided to catch up with them to understand what life is like in the Back-end team and what motivates them both.

Please introduce yourself…

Afridi: Hello! I am Afridi, I am from Belgaum, Karnataka. I am a Backend Developer at Increasingly, I have been in the industry for about 3 years and primarily work in Java-based applications.

Sindhu: My Name is Sindhu BK, I am from Bangalore. As the Backend Team Lead my role is to Program and develop Increasingly products, I spend my day testing, identifying areas for improvement and subsequently developing these modifications.

What is a typical day in the life of someone in your role?

Afridi: Although we’re based in Bangalore, we work UK hours. So, I usually start my working day at 11 o’clock in the morning, I’ll then check my email and ProofHub (our system for managing our workload) if any tasks have been assigned to me. We have a daily standup in the morning to discuss our projects, and then I start planning my day and start working through my assigned tasks.

Sindhu: My day starts with getting updates & assigning the team the tasks. This involves programming, reviewing code, troubleshooting critical production issues if there are any, and implementing new clients.

What’s the best part about working at Increasingly?

Afridi: The best part about working at Increasingly is the support we get from our colleagues and seniors. I really love the work culture and my team is very supportive. Plus, I have great work-life balance here which is very important to me.

Sindhu: The leadership team actively encourages, supports and appreciates the work we all do and we have a great culture of recognising and appreciating eachother through giving Karma to our colleagues which results in a monthly prize for the team member who has gone above and beyond for their teammates.

How have you grown professionally since joining?

Afridi: When I joined, I had a couple of years of experience, however, Increasingly has allowed me to learn quickly. I have taken on new challenges and have continued to develop my technological skills. I’ve had the privilege to work on many critical projects which have been great for my personal development, I genuinely feel that every day I am learning new things.

Sindhu: I have learned about multiple aspects of technology within the e-commerce sector. I have transitioned from being a developer when I started to leading and guiding the entire team which has been transformational for my confidence and I hope to continue building on this.

What advice would you give to anyone looking to pursue a career in tech?

Afridi: First and foremost, you should believe in yourself and in your abilities. I would recommend researching and finding resources to learn. Reach out to other people in the industry you want to join on LinkedIn and start to build your own network of techies. Most importantly – practice your craft.

Sindhu: Focus on the technology you want to learn, Java, Python or Database and start researching online to gain as much knowledge as you can. I would recommend taking a course to develop your skills. Finally, practice often.