James Poulton shares his experience of discovering and joining the friendly and passionate Team at Lilli as a Mobile Engineer.
Where the journey begins
At Lilli, we’re constantly on the lookout for exceptional talent across our teams to help us grow and realise our ambitions. Our People team find our future teammates through many avenues, from tech job apps to LinkedIn to nurturing our interns into full-time teammates, but also like to get out and about to meet budding talent in person. James Poulton, Mobile Engineer here at Lilli, shares his experience finding us at the Silicon MilkRoundabout job fair, applying, and starting his journey.
Finding Lilli at Silicon MilkRoundabout
A few Lilli teammates attended Silicon MilkRoundabout last year on the lookout for the next talent to join and help us continue building our proactive remote monitoring technology and empowering vulnerable people to live more independently, safely and happily within their own homes.
As a tech-based company, we attended this event that brought together professionals looking for a new challenge in the tech world, where James’ journey with Lilli began.
What made you attend Silicon MilkRoundabout?
“I was working for a large tech company at the time, but I had always been interested in working as part of a smaller team, and there were some very interesting start-ups due to attend Silicon MilkRoundabout. It also looked like it would be a great event, with lots of interesting activities going on throughout the day!”
What attracted you to the Lilli stand that made you walk over that day?
“The main thing that stood out was that everyone from Lilli seemed to be having a great time together. You could tell everyone was excited to be there and wanted to share their excitement for the Lilli product and mission.”
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Remaining approachable and transparent the whole way through
One of Lilli’s values is to be authentic and that applies across the whole company. We try to make every company decision and update as open and transparent as possible. This is why we often hold Q&A sessions with the management team, and teammates are actively encouraged to ask questions. This transparency starts from the moment of application and does not stop – we are always open and encourage the team to be curious and involved!
Who did you speak to at the Silicon MilkRoundabout day?
“I initially spoke to Gren, the CEO, (or, how I view him now – Gren, our CEO) who brought such positivity about the mission and the current Lilli team, but also made it clear the scale of the task ahead. This was refreshing as in a short amount of time I was able to understand both the massive potential along with the possible challenges. Gren then recommended I had a chat with Marija, one of the Lilli front-end engineers (and now one of my amazing teammates). We had a great chat about new technologies, the performance of React front-end applications and how it was to work at Lilli. She was clearly super passionate about the company and spoke about the many benefits such as the work-away-from-home scheme and the flexibility of remote working.”
What did you think about the interview process?
“It moved really quickly and everyone that I spoke to seemed genuinely enthusiastic about being involved. This allowed for a relaxed atmosphere, which definitely helped during the live coding interview, as these can so often be high-pressure events. Working through a coding problem with Marija and Robin really felt like a collaborative exercise with teammates, and we had some great discussions whilst working toward a solution.”
Experiencing Lilli from the inside
Following his first six months at the company, James told us a bit about his experience with Lilli so far.
Tell us about your first 6 months at Lilli?
“My first six months at Lilli have been great. I’ve loved the fast pace of the work and how quickly our team can get things done due to a high level of alignment. It’s great to be part of a team where everyone is keen to learn and discuss technical concepts, and we are empowered to investigate and implement new technologies to create the ideal User Experience.”
“I also appreciate the level of ownership that we are given, making key choices at an architectural and design level and then implementing these as code. In my first six months, I’ve interacted a lot with members of non-tech teams at social events such as the quarterly in-person meeting, in addition to catching up a couple of times per week during company-wide updates and regular “Feel Good Friday” calls. It’s great to have such friendly people throughout the company, and it’s highly motivating to see so many people keen to work together to make Lilli a success!”
