Monzo Staff Weekly Q&A - Niamh Power (Mobile Engineer, Android & iOS) šŸ“²

I was always quite musical growing up, I was in an orchestra and the bands at school, and got to grade 8 on clarinet, so Iā€™d go for the first option. Even getting to a decent level, Iā€™m always envious of those that can do it perfectly, although Iā€™m not sure thereā€™s such a thing!

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Having just attended the Firebase summit in Prague (hence the delays in these replies, sorry!), I think that the machine learning tools available to mobile developers is really interesting and exciting. The facial recognition tools are also brilliant, although hopefully companies will start thinking of more useful applications than animojis :joy:

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For me, it would be the business accounts. My partner owns a cafe bar (shameless plug), and seeing the struggle of managing the accounts and getting helpful information, as well as having to pay through the nose to do anything is really frustrating!

The biggest challenge for me has been getting used to the pace of everything here. Iā€™ve always worked for mobile development agencies in the past, and the speed of everything is a lot slower. It is fantastic in its own right though, as being able to work to weekly releases means that what youā€™re working on one week could potentially fix a userā€™s issue and be in their hands a week or two later!

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Given that I have yet to own a phone that I havenā€™t broken, I definitely would not be qualified haha!

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Iā€™m the first person to have it officially as my job title! There are a few developers who have a knowledge or have worked on a different platform in the past, and I think weā€™d like to get more of that as it really helps understanding and caring that the platforms are in sync, especially now as the Android app has caught up a little bit!

I really love being able to see both sides, especially on the design side of development. Acknowledging and ensuring that each platform sticks to the design guidelines from either Google or Apple is really fun, and the satisfaction of having both apps perform and look great is awesome!

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So Iā€™m currently in one of the Lending teams, so Iā€™m working on refining the experience in Overdrafts, as well as helping build new features to improve the Loans offerings.

In terms of bug prioritisation, this is something Iā€™m working out myself, as we get a fair bit of autonomy. In general though, we work together with QA (testing) and product to decide how much of an impact a bug will have. Things like the one you linked we sometimes try and pick up during Monzo time, so hopefully it wonā€™t keep bugging you for long!

Apologies this isnā€™t the best answer, ask me again in a few months! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Such a hard question! I think for me it would have to be Monument Valley from UsTwo, itā€™s one of the only mobile games thatā€™s kept my interest until the end, and the design and gameplay is just awesome!

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I havenā€™t noticed anything yet! I think this is becoming less of a thing now we have more Android developers and are able to catch and keep up! The teams in general are tending to be moving to a more ā€œmobileā€ approach rather than platform specific. Thereā€™s much more of a focus on the platforms being similar, which is great! Although i canā€™t answer this question fully as Iā€™ve only been around for 6/7 weeks now!

Android, the better one obviously :wink: A Pixel 2 specifically :smiley:

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  • For me, I have always wanted to be an Illustrator or Animator, but ended up going down the more sciency route. I stumbled across mobile development in my internship during university, and loved that I could have a say on how something looked and felt to a user. Even now I much prefer working on the UI based code than the more logic based, so i think that combination was what really sealed it for me.
  • There are so many online resources to learn from, but I think if you wanted to learn mobile development specifically, I would think of a really basic app idea, and find tutorials to teach you the individual parts.
  • Iā€™m really keen to learn more web development, but Iā€™m more focused on developing my skills in mobile for now!
  • The first week was crazy! But brilliant. Everyone was so lovely and it was a really good gradual introduction to Monzoā€™s culture and way of working
  • Oh god, all the time! Itā€™s incredibly frustrating using apps that are mostly web views and perform horrendously. However working on multiple production apps does also make you realise how hard it is to have a perfect app, as sometimes you really do have to prioritise some features and bugs over others to progress the product.
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Iā€™ve been a Monzo customer for a couple of years ago and made the full switch earlier this year, it would have been earlier but as an Android user i had to wait a bit! I personally love the notifications, now I have a joint account and knowing what weā€™re spending in real time, and having the assurance that a payment has gone through ok, often before the card terminal finishes is fantastic.

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Iā€™m 100% with you. Grade 8 piano myself but always envious of others playing so well.

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Another great Q&A - Thanks Niamh! :grinning:

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