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Joining X402
A baptism of fire

I started working for X402 in March this year and had only been here for a week before the lock down started, so it was quite a stressful time. I had come from finance, so I was starting a new job with an industry change and within weeks, some of my colleagues were furloughed.

Due to the circumstances, I had to be quite independent in settling into my role and dealing with mistakes. I am a proactive person so the best thing for me to do was to use my experience and start reviewing and improving the existing processes.

As is often the case with small businesses, there were some holes in the management of efficiency and budget which meant that we had got into a loop of doing a lot of work for free if clients weren’t 100 percent satisfied. This was something that needed to be changed as soon as possible so we worked on cutting that cycle.

Three months into working here I got a message from Yvan, our director. He asked if we could meet at a scheduled time but wouldn’t tell me a reason why. I immediately started to worry that I hadn’t passed my probation and said, ‘oh god, your sacking me right here!’ Yvan laughed and said that ‘all would be revealed in the meeting.’

When I turned up to the meeting the next day Yvan sat in silence for about 5 minutes, completely torturing me before explaining that they would like me to run the operations. It was a bit of a shock, but I was really happy with the promotion.

Progression
Taking a career and a company to the next level

I have gone from Project management to an Ops role and now have responsibility over all of the processes, the development team, client relationships and legal obligations. I now have a contribution in the strategy of the company and our direction going forward.

The great thing about working here is that Yvan and our MD Dan really do listen to and consider my ideas and I am included in building the strategy that will make us more productive, more profitable and set us on the road to becoming a global enterprise.

One of the biggest changes I have seen within X402 since I started here is the team morale. I started at a challenging time and the team were quite stressed. By addressing the issues, improving communication and setting up processes we have turned things around, and the team are now happier to be coming in to work.

We have also improved the relationships with our clients by giving them flexibility and control in who they communicate with to discuss projects. We have Clients that prefer to talk to developers so Natalie the project manager will organise the paperwork, agreements and costs etc but Sharon a developer here speaks to the clients. We also have clients that have large scale operations and so for them communicating with a Project Manager is ideal.

Looking forward
The next steps for X402

I’m really excited to for the future of X402. I’m excited to see what happens with our Core project as this could be the future of the company and I’m excited for our corporate responsibility projects like getting involved with Women in Tech. I’m also looking forward to having more strategy workshops, setting up more processes and growing our team structure.

I think for the rest of the team, it has been tough but by resolving the issues means we can move forward and work on projects for the future. We are working with cutting edge technology that powers companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Netflix. Working with advanced tech means that our training will be upscaled and we will be specialists in technology of the future.

I actually love my job! Of course, like everybody there are days where you end up getting annoyed or things aren’t going great but I actually really like coming to work. I love the flexibility of working from home or the office and I have a close commute. I work with a great team of people who are really helpful, and Dan and Yvan are really good mentors. If I have questions or need help, I can pop them a message and they will make the time because they appreciate people.