I don't quite understand what you're working on at the moment, but I can see that you're very happy.
- My friend's mother, 2021
I first became aware of Indent when one of my best friends and a person whose accomplishments I very much admire, Tim Neutkens suggested I check out the interesting work of Fouad Matin (CEO of Indent) and made an introduction.
When the pandemic arrived, I found myself starting my own development agency — a story for another time. Bootstrapping my own company was a joyful and successful enterprise, and I'd really recommend giving running your own company a try if you think this would be interesting to you. After announcing on Twitter that I was branching out and starting my own development agency, Fouad was the first start-up client to proactively reach out to me. I became the first external contributor to the Indent codebase as a contractor on a part-time basis.
What immediately appealed to me about Indent is that:
- The company were using cutting edge technologies
- The team were solving a difficult-in-the-right-way problem
- Indent had a world class list of investors and some very notable customers.
I found myself really drawn to the product we were realising at Indent, and found myself learning more from my one-to-one talks with Fouad than I could from any podcast or business book. After months of collaborating and building some interesting features — I was asked to consider joining Indent on a permanent, full-time basis.
When assessing an opportunity like this, I evaluate it against the following concerns which serve as the North Star for my career:
🧭 Career Priorities 2020 - 2025:
- 👁 Pursue substance over status
- 👩🏻💻 Prioritise my progress as a technical individual contributor
- 😌 Be treated with kindness and respect
- 🏡 Work remotely
👁 Pursue substance over status
I want to work on projects which add genuine value to the world.
Security appeals to me as an industry because I enjoy working on a tool which solves real problems for many other businesses.
With Indent I could see a need for a central system for controlling access to cloud apps and infra (ODAC — on-demand access control) in every company I've worked at and especially in my work as an external contractor. The calibre of potential customers Fouad was already in talks with was exciting and demonstrated that there is a real demand for what we were creating.
Joining a start-up at an early stage and being an early engineering hire requires a particular sort of person: willing to take on responsibility and able to navigate ambiguity and uncertainty, all whilst digging deep on executing quality technical work within a short time frame. I realised I would learn so much more about my craft and about building a start-up being part of Indent's journey than I could going alone.
👩🏻💻 Prioritise my progress as a technical individual contributor
I want to become one of the best Software Engineers building web applications.
In deciding what to specialise in, I'm looking for the intersection of skills which are in-demand and difficult to acquire, and then work very hard to gain those skills. The opportunity to focus solely on the Front-End in a React / Next.js / TypeScript / TailwindCSS application will allow me to grow in the areas which are important to me - with particular reference to web performance and codebase composability.
I previously worked on the platform team at the LEGO Group. Researching and experimenting with a range of cloud technologies and infrastructure solutions is interesting to me. As variety is key for me to understand the space, I believe that this interest is best nutured outside of my work as an individual contributor.
Joining a start-up led by technical founders who are distinguished individual contributors leaves me confident in organisational buy-in for focussing on technical depth. That said, I have learnt a lot from Fouad's pragmatism and focus on the customer with regards to prioritising when to ship.
😌 Be treated with kindness and respect
I understand my best work happens in a kind and respectful environment.
The Indent founders Dan Gillespie and Fouad Matin are genuine and kind people who I enjoy working alongside.
Overall, I feel that Indent as a company has genuinely demonstrated to me, during my contracting period with them, that they are a great employer. I didn't need any extra convincing from their side to prove that this was the case.
🏡 Work remotely
For the next decade of my career I am going to decouple being physically present in an office from creating meaningful and successful work.
This requirement was one of my main motivations to pursue writing software as a career choice. I am interested in pursuing projects where work delivered is valued over presenteeism; programming a web application can be done asychronously from anywhere.
Whilst Indent see a future for the company as headquartered in San Francisco and have a beautiful office space to collaborate in, the founders see value in having an early employee located in Europe. My being located in London has helped with gaining clients, making on-call rotations easier, and the time difference hasn't stopped me from being a presence in meetings and interviews.
🌉 Indent is hiring
Indent raised a $5.6 million seed round for building a solution to on-demand access control.
If you're interested, we're hiring across a number of roles which can be found on the Indent Jobs Page.