Having previously worked as a Senior Developer, Saquib is currently a Technical Lead at Bricklane. Here, he takes us through a typical day and shares his thoughts on why the property industry needs to embrace technology.
What’s a typical day like for you?
Each morning begins with a daily stand-up meeting with the Engineering team where everyone very briefly updates each other about the tasks they are working on and any assistance they might need.
Following this, my day will always include discussions about the latest tech and architecture, documentation, incident support, pairing with other developers on tasks, and working on process improvements that will make us more efficient.
We have occasional solution socialisation meetings where team members who have resolved tickets share the solution with the rest of the team. Sharing knowledge about particular issues is vital in order to ensure others can take over if a similar issue arises again.
We also have a biweekly Technology All-Hands where all tech departments like Engineering and Data Science present what they’ve been working on. This really helps with cross-departmental communication and enables us to help each other if needed.
Additionally, keeping up to date on the latest developments in tech is very important for our team so Friday afternoons are reserved for R&D and training.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Probably the fact that it’s very fast-paced and there’s zero bureaucracy when it comes to implementation.
I love to mentor as well. Coming from a teaching background, I get great satisfaction from coaching and facilitating other developers. It also helps me refresh my own knowledge of certain topics.
Finally, I enjoy the ongoing learning that the role requires and being able to use it to help my team level up. We all share interesting articles or side projects that we are working on, which provides us all with a wealth of great ideas.
How do you find working in the real estate/property sector?
Working at Bricklane is the first time I’ve been involved in the property sector, so I had to learn a lot of terminologies and concepts when I first joined.
I think historically, the sector has been overly tech-averse which has prevented it from fully accessing the benefits technology can offer. By harnessing tech, Bricklane has access to data and insights that have led to lower operational costs, an enhanced ability to identify investment opportunities and increased resident retention and satisfaction.
What’s the hardest part of your role?
Designing architecture and choosing which technology/ framework to use. If you make the wrong choice at this initial stage, the entire project could start on the wrong foot, and correcting the mistake later could be very expensive and complex.
What do you like about working at Bricklane?
The friendly and comfortable atmosphere, the intellectually challenging work and the fact that we get to be a part of cool projects.
I also really like that our team gets to interact with a lot of people across the wider company which is great as we get to understand how other teams work and are then able to create tools that can make things better for them.
When did you join and how did you get into this role?
Originally, I joined Bricklane as a Senior Developer in early 2022. I had seen a Linkedin post placed by David, Bricklane’s VP of Engineering, who was looking for Senior Engineers to join his new team here.
I had a full interview process which included a pairing exercise with a few developers, followed by a final interview in which I was offered the role.
After my first year at Bricklane, I switched to being a Technical Lead as it suits the evolution of my current role perfectly.
