Since graduating from CodeClan, Daniel started working as a Junior Developer for Dog, an award-winning communications agency in Glasgow.
We caught up with him about what it’s like working for an agency, getting involved in tech culture, and how CodeClan still helps him today.
Youโve been working at Dog for a few months now – what is your role there?
I am a junior developer as part of the Dog team. We have a wealth of global clients across a number of sectors including finance, entertainment and beauty and my role within backend development is to ensure their website is working to its full potential at all times. Itโs business critical that our clientโs websites are always available so ensuring I work quickly and accurately is absolutely necessary.
As part of the of the development team we get to be fully involved through the full process from design and UX to development and testing, meaning we can provide the best websites possible for our clients needs with their audience right at the heart of the brief.
Do you enjoy working for a digital agency?
I really like it. I get to see immediate change as soon as I build something into a client’s website. I can see the positive influence on the site by the sudden raise in traffic.
Working for an agency also really suits my personality. Iโm quite outgoing and like talking to and dealing with people directly. I feel like it was the correct move for me. Itโs a world I was never part of and every day is a new challenge that I enjoy working through.
What is the company culture like at Dog?
One of the main reasons why I went to work for Dog is because I had heard so much of the โDogโ culture. The environment is second to none. Itโs very flexible and youโre not rigidly stuck to hours. Youโre able to work with different types of clients and take issues whenever you can.
Every day is different and the people are supportive and motivated by what they do. Dog are one of the main players in Glasgowโs digital industry and I think that’s because of the culture.
Does your experience from CodeClan impact you in your job now?
The skills I learned at CodeClan are still helping me now. The 16-weeks were a very invaluable experience to me.
For someone like myself, I came from a manual labor job and didnโt have any past tech experience or secondary education. I had been working with my hands most of my adult life but then decided to take it another step and change career.
I actually donโt work with any of the languages we were taught in CodeClan. But the basics and the fundamentals of all the programming languages are relatively the same, so everything CodeClan taught was helpful.
A large part of the learning at CodeClan is getting faced with a problem and having to break it down into small manageable chunks. This way of tackling problems is still something I take with me and use everyday in my job.
What is Scotlandโs tech meet-up scene like?
A year and a half ago I wouldnโt have known anything about it- but after coming to CodeClan I discovered all of these different tech meet-ups in Glasgow and Edinburgh- thereโs so many itโs huge! There are plenty of opportunities toย participate and meet people who are in other tech roles.
The meetups are great- especially if you want to learn about something new. For example, I had barely worked with content management system (CMS), but then I found out that thereโs a CMS meetup in Glasgow every month.
I was out of my comfort zone, but people were more than helpful to give me their email addresses, phone numbers and resources. Itโs really great to see how people are so welcoming –ย Iโve never gone out and met someone who has not been helpful.
Get involved and try something new!
You can find CodeClanย events on our website page here. Interested in changing career? Check out our career change and upskilling courses.
If you’d like to know more about the tech meetups taking place in Glasgow and Edinburgh, check out the events onย OpenTechCalendar.
