Gravitywho? #8 Luke
In this series I interview the award-winning team of creative geeks, thinkers and grafters, one by one.
Hi Luke, great to meet you. Where are you from and how long have you been at Gravitywell?
I was born in Nottingham and moved to Bristol when I was 6 months old. I've been at Gravitywell for 5 years next month according to LinkedIn - someone get me a pay rise and a cake!
Wow, that's a brave age to leave home. What’s great about working here?
Working here is amazing from a Developer point of view. I’m allowed so much freedom to explore new tech and apply it to new projects where appropriate and, of course, if it is worth using. We are literally on the cutting edge of tech from programming to architecture, unleashing endless ideas and possibilities. You can tell you’ve got the right directors when that’s possible!
The team, regardless of department, is another great aspect of working here. Everyone is really nice and amazing at what they bring to the party. Banter is on point but balanced with the care and respect that we have for each other. It’s not just a good working environment, it’s like a family.
Get that on Glassdoor! Who would be your dream client and what would you like to work on for them?
No idea!
Oh Luke, I was expecting you to rival Henry with that question. So how did you get into Software Development?
I started when I was about 10 years old. I first started building websites for mates' bands and events. I think MySpace back in the day was really good for my learnings as I had mates coming to me to help customise their profiles so that they'd have an unique profile compared to everyone else.
It was from there that I wanted to learn further, looking into other aspects of programming. Not just to improve the possibilities of the websites that I was making, but also to see if there was anything else out there for me to get my teeth into such as PC applications, etc.
When I hit the age of planning where I wanted to go in my life as a career, I decided to go to university and study Computer Science. This was before I had the knowledge of online tutoring or self learning websites such as Treehouse or Codecademy. It wasn’t until I had my hand in hardcore programming languages such as Java and C# that I realised I was in the right place.
After that, I went back into web development and the rest is history.
What’s your advice for someone wanting to get into Software Development?
Try CodeCombat and see if you enjoy the coding aspects of that. If you want to learn more you don’t have to go to university like I did to get far in programming. Try your hand at self-learning websites such as Treehouse or Codecademy and also remember that within the coding world, Google is your friend - Google the sh*t out of everything!
Absolutely. That applies to parenting as well, by the way. What’s the worst thing about being a Software Developer?
Get used to change because there’s a lot of it within the coding world!
It’s forever evolving and thanks to the vast and ever growing coding communities on GitHub etc., everyone is trying to create libraries of code to help developers like me do a job. This also leaves you with lots of research to do, working out whether you yourself should use this new library or just ignore it.
What’s your favourite piece of tech and why?
The internet. I’d be nothing without it.
That sounded extremely profound. Your Hackathon dream destination would be..?
Vegas BABY! I would be awesome to work in the penthouse of a Las Vegas hotel. Then of course in any down time you can go party and explore!
YES! I think you deserve Vegas after 5 years of service, right? Finally, what’s the best kept secret in Bristol?
Jungle Rumble Adventure Golf - Me and the wife had our first date there and look at us now! Married with a baby on the way. You can’t get much better than that. Plus they owe us a free game - I need to get my revenge on my wife for letting her win!
Thank you to Luke for being interviewed. You can find him on Instagram.
Stay tuned for another edition of Gravitywho? ...
