Meet The Team @ Depop — John Fletcher— Software Engineer
This is a post in an ongoing series meeting different members from the world of engineering at Depop. In this post, we meet John — a Software Engineer.
Can you tell us a bit about you and your role?
I’m a mid-level software engineer working mostly on our web listing experience. I’ve had a few different roles here, starting with delivery management. I studied Economics in university and then found a passion for software development while working with a really terrible system as a university administrator. I kept thinking about all the ways the software could be improved. So, I decided to move into the industry and be involved in improving it rather than complaining about it. The best way for me to get a foot in the door was as an IT business analyst in an insurance company and then got into delivery management. A year and half ago, an opportunity to start working directly with code came up here at Depop. This had long been an ambition, so I went for it and haven’t looked back since. When I’m not coding, I’m usually either pretending to be a horse at the behest of my two daughters (4 and 6) or off wandering around the Kent countryside (not as a horse).
How long have you been at Depop?
I’ve been at Depop for 5 and a half years, I’ve seen a lot of change and growth here. Depop has become a better and better place to work. I’ve even been around long enough to see people leave and come back again.
How did you find the interview process?
Our interview process has evolved a lot since I joined five years ago, at the time it was quite informal. I had interviews with our people team, the head of mobile development and a product manager. Since my role was different back then, we mostly talked about my experience working in the process side of software development but we also talked about what I found special about Depop. At that time, I was really interested in the way it enabled small sellers to make a living and I’m glad that we’ve kept that at our heart while embracing sustainability.
What were you doing before Depop?
I worked in another startup which had only around 30 people and put in place their very early product and agile processes, like Depop, they’ve grown a lot over the last few years.
What did you use your Depop welcome credit to buy?
These second hand tan trousers to complete my swanky 70s themed outfit for a Depop party.
What interests you most about working at Depop?
I made the career change into software engineering because I’m interested both in writing code and how it provides value. At Depop we have the opportunity to work across a range of interesting technologies and are encouraged to work cross functionally. Although most of my daily work is making web changes, I’ve also been able to work in our scala backend, make infrastructure changes, contribute to our development experience and be deeply involved in the product development process.
What’s your favourite thing about working at Depop?
The culture at Depop is very pragmatic, and that has a lot of really positive consequences. For one, it means Depop is a very flexible place to work: you can work how and when suits you. As a father with 2 young children that really helps organise life especially when it throws surprises at you. It also means that, generally, decisions are made quickly, processes are smooth and teams are aligned — the value of working like this cannot be overstated, especially if you’ve ever worked somewhere that doesn’t work like this.
