Meet Rhydian, Full Stack Developer

This week we welcome full stack developer, Rhydian Jenkins to Team BaseKit. Our development team is responsible for ensuring our Store, Site and Bookings products continually provide a seamless and effortless experience when it comes to managing their business online.

We spoke with Rhydian about his path into development, how he’s finding the world of remote work and his love of the Ospreys rugby team.

Welcome to BaseKit, Rhydian! Tell us a little about your experience?

After my undergraduate in computer science, I went to work as a web developer for a year before going back to university to take on a PhD in robotics. While I tremendously enjoyed my time at university and the lessons learned along the way, it was clear by the end of the 4 years that I enjoy life outside of academia more and I wanted to venture back into a pure software development role.

Owing to my research background, I’ve had some experience in developing all sorts of software – from robotic operating systems to machine learning models and now web development. This is my third web development role.

Having experience working on contrasting software projects in a variety of contexts has certainly helped when taking on such a huge project here at BaseKit.

What most attracted you to join the BaseKit team?

I wanted to work with a group of people that felt like a team of friends. I was looking for a project interesting and exciting enough to challenge me but was free of the ‘corporate overlord’ mindset that you see with some of the larger companies. Additionally, I work best being fully remote with occasional and eventful visits to the office. BaseKit fits that criteria.

What does your new role involve?

As a full stack developer, I write software that will power both the frontend and the backend. In layman’s terms, that means I write code that will serve up content from the cloud as well as display/manage that content in your browser (and everything in between).

Most jobs involve a degree of continuous learning, and I think this is especially the case for software. Coming into such a huge project demands that I am comfortable investigating and deciphering the inner workings of the codebase to discover how something currently works so that I can then build on top of it to add new features.

For me, I love the puzzle of writing code in the same way that my mother loves solving crosswords in her spare time!

How are you finding remote working with the BaseKit team?

Remote work is a difficult thing to get right. While no setup is perfect, I feel BaseKit has adopted the new workflow extremely well.

A prominent concern of remote work for me is the feeling of isolation, or that you’ve got no support when faced with a difficult problem. The people at BaseKit have been extremely welcoming which has harboured a work environment where everyone feels comfortable messaging each other to spark collaboration.

It’s that constant communication that I feel the people here have done well to nurture.

How would you describe the developer team culture?

The team here at BaseKit certainly walks the walk when it comes to looking after its people. I’ve already mentioned the supportive atmosphere, but there’s so much more that we do to try to create that team culture we all strive for.

Quizzes, games, weekly virtual company events, and communication channels casual enough for the ‘office chit chat’ you would otherwise miss out on all help to foster an overall enjoyable environment to work in.

What are your main goals for working at BaseKit?

As always, to improve my software engineering skills by producing the best product I can under the support of the entire team.

Writing code is relatively easy. Writing testable, maintainable, simple, and extendable code that is going to be used for years to come by a lot of people is something that is much more difficult. Good software engineers try every day to do the latter.

Since joining the team, what’s been your favourite thing about BaseKit?

Having a professional environment where I have the space to grow as a developer in a team that is friendly and supporting is huge for me. Being under a management team that recognises the appropriate resource we need to produce our best work has allowed me to grow as a developer while enjoying my time doing so.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Aside from writing code, I’m a fan of Rugby (Ospreys!), personal fitness, and video games. I own way more video games than a grown man should!

Would you like to join our world as a developer?

We’d love to hear from you! Check out our careers page for the latest BaseKit vacancies.