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

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Note : All Monzo Q&As to date can be found here :grinning:

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Yes yes, forum fam! You’ve heard the rumours and the whispers and I’m here to confirm it is true. I am indeed back from a short holiday. I had some time off. It was supposed to be refreshing. It wasn’t. You ever take a holiday and then need another holiday to recover? :beer: :sleeping_bed: :joy:

A week is a long time in Monzo land, and it seems we’re just a stone’s throw away from 1.1 million customers now!!! :astonished: Feels like it was just one month ago that we hit a million… oh wait :wink:

And we have ads running on the tube now? Awwww yeahhhhh. This quick straw poll by @o99 is showing that opinions are pretty evenly split on which is the best, so that feels like a good sign!

Massive shoutout to guest-host @anon77734705 and @anon21222882 for doing an excellent Q&A in my absence!

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Now let’s get this show, as they say, on the road! :oncoming_taxi:

But first, you’ve hopefully done your homework. If not, have a Netflix-style binge on us. A whole world of hot coral entertainment, for the price of free :wink:

*Click here to see all previous Q&As*

Week 1 : Chris MacLean, Customer Operations & Vulnerable Customers :santa:t2:

Week 2 : James Nicholson, iOS Engineer :green_apple:

Week 3 : Tara Mansfield, People Operations Manager :woman_technologist:t5::man_technologist:t3:

Week 4 : James Routley, Backend Engineer :hammer_and_wrench:

Week 5 : Hugh Wells, Customer Operations :man_police_officer:t3:

Week 6 : Naz Malik, Technical Specialist :computer:

Week 7 : Fred Morgan, COps Squad Captain (Calls & Social Media) :telephone_receiver:

Week 8 : Emma Northcott, COps Scaling Team :balance_scale:

Week 9 : Jarno Wolf, COps Financial Crime Specialist & Squad Captain :wolf:

Week 10 : Maria Campbell, Head of People :woman_office_worker:t2::man_office_worker:t4:

Week 11 : Jim Amey, Night COps Captain :bat: :crescent_moon:

Week 12 : Richard Cook, Online Community Manager :man_cook:

Week 13 : Beatrice Borbon, Content & Press Manager :newspaper:

Week 14 : Tom Blomfield, CEO :crown:

Week 15 : Ella Johanny, COps/Hiring :handshake:

Week 16 : Harry Ashbridge, Writer :writing_hand:t3:

Week 17 : Beth Scott, Overnight COps :cat2:

Week 18 : Georgie Parmenter, Executive Assistant to the Founders :blonde_woman:

Week 19 : Vulnerable Customers Team :sunflower:

Week 20 : Leah Templeman, Interim VP People :sun_with_face:

Week 21 : Daniel Chatfield, Backend Engineer, Fincrime & Security :closed_lock_with_key:

Week 22 : Valerio Magliulo, Product Manager - Revenue Team :money_with_wings:

Week 23 : Sam Watkin, Operations Analyst :thinking:

Week 24 : Kieran McHugh, Backend Engineer :desktop_computer:

Week 25 : Jonas Huckestein, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer :computer_mouse:

Week 26 : Annual Report Edition with Tristan Thomas and Julie Oey :calendar:

Week 27 : Zander Brade, Lead Product Designer :pencil2:

Week 28 : Richard Dingwall, Payments Engineer :moneybag: :wrench:

Week 29 : Oliver Beattie, Head of Engineering (Reliability Report Special) :watch:

Week 30 : Bruno Vaz Moço, Product Manager (Scalers) :balance_scale:

Week 31 : Dillon Van Auken, Remote COps Team Lead and Vegas Project Team Lead :first_quarter_moon_with_face: 🂡

Week 32 : Rhys Davies, COps Cardiff Office :dragon:

Week 33 : Emily Parrett, COps Call & The Gang :phone:

Week 34 : Liam Houghton, Ops Fixer :hammer_and_wrench:

Week 35 : Frances Coyle, Legal Team :scroll:

Week 36 : Shak Welch, COps Fincrime Specialist :police_car:

Week 37 : Sarah Allen, People Operations :woman: :man:

Week 38 : Simon B, COps Community Specialist :globe_with_meridians:

Week 39 : Natalie Price, Visual Designer :paintbrush:

Week 40 : George Webster, Night Cop :crescent_moon:

Week 41 : Brenda Wong, COps, Call & The Gang :telephone_receiver:

This week, in the Hot Coral Hot Seat™️ we’ve got the awesome Niamh Power - Mobile Engineer for both Android AND iOS! That’s some serious programming power right there.

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Niamh started here last month, and is working on our Lending team, helping develop our Overdrafts and Loans on both platforms.

Fun Fact About Niamh!

“I had the chance to go skiing with Rick Astley, unfortunately the dates didn’t line up!”

Her favourite thing about working at Monzo?

“Being able to work on something that people love and care about” :two_hearts:

Get your questions in folks, Niamh will be here on Friday to answer them :grinning:

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Which is better iOS or Android? :sunglasses:

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Do you have any relatives named Max?

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“I had the chance to go skiing with Rick Astley, unfortunately the dates didn’t line up!”

Did he let you down?

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Would you rather the ability to:

Play any musical instrument perfectly. No limits on number of instruments etc.

Speak and understand any language fluently. Speaking, listening, and reading.

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What do you think are the most exciting new developments in both Android and iOS?

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If you could work on bringing one feature to Monzo that isn’t available what would it be?

And a second question please…

What has been the biggest challenge for you at Monzo?

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Now that Monzo have a Mobile Engineer, will they now repair our phones if we send them in?

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Is being an engineer for both platforms common at Monzo? I imagine it keeps life interesting at least!

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Hello! :wave: Can you tell us anything about any new features you’re working on?

Also, how do you prioritise fixing bugs? There’s quite a few that are sitting in the bug reports bit of the forum that would be super satisfying to tick off as done! (And any chance of fixing this one - it’s, ahem, bugging me)

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What’s your favorite app?

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Have you ever had a cool feature idea that’s supported on one platform but not the other? Are there things you’d love to implement but can’t because platform parity?

What OS does your personal phone run? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Feel free to pick and choose or answer all :slight_smile:

  • How did you discover being a mobile engineer is right for you?

  • Are there any resources or tips you can provide for someone looking to head down the same path. What to learn etc?

  • Is there any other aspects of technology you’d like to be an engineer of?

  • What was your first week at Monzo like?

  • As you use various apps do you often think how they could be engineered differently?

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You joined Monzo not so long ago but how long you have been using Monzo and in your opinion what is the best feature in Monzo?

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Hey all,

Just a quick update - Niamh headed out to a conference over the weekend, and didn’t take her work laptop - she’s missing access to her Monzo-related logins, including her forum account.

We’re really sorry this Q&A fell through the cracks - I guess there’s a first time for everything! :grimacing:

The good news is that I guess you’ll get two Q&A’s this week :tada:

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Hi all! Apologies for not answering all of these on Friday, was getting some bug fixes done before I went away and I’ve been in Prague at the Firebase Summit :slight_smile: Got my answers ready so will be posting these now…

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Tough question! For personal use, I much prefer Android, mostly for the flexibility, and to be honest it comes down to a lot of personal preference. For development it’s a much closer call, Android Studio is much more intelligent and reliable than the equivalent for iOS, Xcode. But also some of the features like the interface builder and the simulator are much more advanced, although this is becoming a closer and closer competition each year.

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Haha, I wish! I’d love to call a future son that one day. My Dad’s favourite Simpson episode is the one where he changes his name to Max Power, it’s a particular family classic!

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Unfortunately, I did! It was my last week of university so felt I should probably be there! So at least he’s sticking to his word.

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