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Frequently Asked Questions

Contents

General questions relating to all roles

Questions of particular interest to technical roles

General questions relating to all roles

Why haven't I heard of you?

MX Telecom itself is not much in the public eye. However, many of our clients such as 118 118, The Sun newspaper and Twitter are instantly recognisable.

We are well known in industry and were named as the fastest growing company in Europe by the 2006 Deloitte Fast 500 Survey. We also finished 11th in the Times Tech Track 100 league tables in 2005, and 22nd in 2006. More recently we have continued to place highly in growth tracking competitions and picked up the GTB Award for Information Services Innovation 2009.

Where is MX Telecom based?

Our London office is located in Chiswick in the west of the city, about 25 minutes on the Tube from the West End. We also have offices in New York and Sydney. For more details, see our contact information.

How many people work at MX Telecom?

We currently employ around 100 people, 74 of whom are based in our London office.

What sort of career progression might I expect?

We aim to operate with a flat structure and place greater emphasis on responsibilities than job titles. We consider ourselves a meritocracy and it is entirely possible for a new hire to find themselves in a key management or technical lead position after two years.

What are standard working hours?

A standard working week is 40 hours. While most people tend to work roughly from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., working hours are flexible depending on role and circumstances.

What is your approach to personal development?

We are proud to say that members of staff tend to stay with the company for many years, meaning we can invest significant time and money in personal development. You can expect plenty of personal support from senior colleagues plus the opportunity to influence the direction of your career.

Are there any perks that come with the job?

The company sponsors a number of sporting and leisure activities including football, Ultimate Frisbee, squash, board games and badminton. It also usually funds some sort of out of office get-together once a month. This can range from larger scale Christmas and summer parties to go-karting and trips to the pub.

In a nutshell, why should I choose MX Telecom?

MX Telecom is a small though rapidly growing company responsible for a string of industry firsts. We offer challenging, interesting work where our efforts are very much in the public eye. We enjoy a relaxed and friendly working environment with regular social activities sponsored by the company as well as the flexibility to allow individuals to shape their own future.

Questions of particular interest to technical roles

What is MX Telecom's technical recruitment procedure?

Typically we operate a two-stage interview system, though this may vary depending on the candidate and role. Interviews include a series of technical questions as well as giving us a chance to get a feel for how you might fit in at MX Telecom. All interviews are conducted by technical staff members who are familiar with the role applied for, and in many cases they will have held the position themselves.

How big a team will I be working in?

Teams have up to eight members. Typically, less experienced hires start out in the larger teams where they are better placed to draw upon the support of existing members.

Which languages and technologies do you use?

When choosing technologies we aim to 'use the right tool for the job'. Approximately 80 per cent of the code is written in Java with most of the rest written in C and C++, principally to implement our real-time systems. For persistent storage we use MySQL, and our live servers run our own internally maintained distribution of Linux. In addition to the above we use a number of scripting languages such as Perl, Python and Bash.

How do you maintain and develop existing products?

Since we sell services rather than software, all live products are hosted by MX Telecom. This means that we are able to quickly implement new features and upgrades without the need for client-side changes. As almost all of the code that we use has been written in-house, we have total control over exactly how our systems work and we do not need to rely on third party suppliers.

What sort of development methodology do you follow?

Individual teams are free to work in whatever way will work best for their specific circumstances. While all teams would look to adhere to agile principles, implementations vary. Some teams practice Scrum or Kanban while others have had success with their own custom process.

How can I be sure to stay up to date with the latest technologies?

In addition to external training and conferences, new and notable technologies and techniques are showcased in a series of seminars and presentations. Typically, seminars are given by experienced members of staff and cover innovations relevant to our field.

Do you make use of any open source technologies?

Yes we do, and what's more we actively contribute to these projects. In particular we are involved with Maven2, Wireshark, VideoLAN, Wicket, Dojo and Eclipse.

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