Sophie Tatham, IVR Project Manager
Joined in May 2005, studied Maths followed by Computer Science
My Role
I was drawn to MX Telecom by the Technical Account Manager role. I'm a techie, but I love dealing with people. I was looking for a job that let me combine the two, but without the long hours and travel to the less beautiful parts of Britain that consultancy seemed to offer.
For two years I did just that - worked as a developer on our IVR (Interactive Voice and Video Response) telephony platform, while also dealing with customers on anything technical to do with the product: pre- and post-sales support, building bespoke plug-ins, advising on how to create video that looks good on a 3G call.
Then my project manager moved within the company, to look after our Client Portal and other projects. By now I had gained some experience and expertise, and was asked to take over as project manager of IVR.
The role is actually much more than project management. As well as planning and managing our day-to-day work, I'm also technical lead on the project and responsible for the welfare and ongoing training of my team. On a typical day, I might spend an hour or two helping a team member with their current development task; investigate a new feature we'd like to add and figure out the best way to implement it; deal with a client query; and fix a bug or two. I'm constantly juggling four or five interesting tasks, which is what I enjoy doing!
Why MX Telecom?
MX is a good-sized company for me. I've experienced, and hated, the faceless mega-corporation; I like to sit in an office with everyone, including the directors, in the same room, and know that I can approach them at any time. At the same time we are big enough that there's room to move within the company, be it sideways or upwards.
We're a young company - at 27 I'm one of the older members of the technical team - and the social side of work is really good. Both in the office and after work in the pub, there's always some friendly banter going on. Company-sponsored sports, and social events every month, help us to get on well together too!
The big pull for me is that MX is a fun and interesting place to be. I've had enough support to learn and advance during my time here. There's enough freedom and informality that you can really get things done without wading through acres of red tape. And I'm never short of a new challenge on the cutting edge of technology.
- July 2007
Tom Elliott, Technical Account Manager
Joined in September 2005, studied Electrical and Information Science
My Role
The Technical Account Manager (TAM) role is probably quite different to your usual Developer role. I generally split my time 50:50 between development on a number of our Applications products and developing and maintaining technical relationships with the clients who use those products. From a software development point of view, this involves using Java and associated technologies to develop complex Web-based applications which add value to our core Gateway products. However, unlike most Developer jobs, my responsibility does not end there!
As a TAM I'm also expected to offer expert advice about our products, either internally to our Sales Team to aid pre-sales enquires or (more commonly) directly to our clients, providing technical support and acting as a liaison between the client and the Project Manager for feature enhancements and bespoke development requests. It is this part of the job which sets TAMing apart from most software development jobs. It can be both frustrating and very rewarding, but definitely helps to keep things lively as well as testing your communication and time management skills!
Why MX Telecom?
All I can say is that whilst I was interviewing I stumbled upon MX, applied, had an interview and everything just 'felt right'. I'd been offered a number of other jobs with much larger, more established organisations.
However, before leaving University I'd managed to experience a number of jobs during my gap year and summer holidays. I'd managed to work a good mix of companies — from a 3 person startup to a 200 strong successful medium sized company and a huge public sector multi-national. I decided that smaller was good, as I wanted to work somewhere where I could really make a difference and where I could see the people making the decisions! MX provided a near perfect match. Still small enough to have that 'start up' feel, but without the risk and uncertainty inevitable with any new venture. Two years on and the company has started to grow up, but we still have that great sense of community you find small companies achieve so easily and large organisations covet, which is great!
The people here are what make it so much fun. There's always someone to head for a cheeky post-work beer with, or enthusiasm for a bit of footy, or ultimate frisbee or whatever you want! Management puts a strong emphasis on culture as well, providing free company activities at least once a month — ranging from a night out at the local to karting, paintballing or a west end show (activities are chosen by the staff). It often feels like a little community of friends rather than a group of people who get paid to sit next to one another every day — and that's magic!
- June 2007
Chris Pitcher, Technical Support Engineer
Joined in July 2006, studied Computer Science
My Role
Many people assume that working in Technical Support means that I spend all day asking people "have you tried turning it off and back on again?" - but this is not the case. In fact my role is hugely varied, and includes both internal and client facing work.
The most important aspect of my job is doing first-line support i.e. putting our clients in contact with the best person within the company to handle their query. Not all of the people I speak to are technical, so often I first have to establish what exactly the issue is before it can be investigated further. I also provide second-line support for our SMS gateway, which normally means investigating why text messages are not being delivered as our clients are expecting. This can involve trawling through huge databases for clues, liaising with the mobile networks, and relies on my having an in-depth knowledge of our systems.
My internal duties include developing tools to support what we do (using mostly JSP, Java and SQL) as well as maintaining the computers in the office and helping colleagues with SMS gateway queries.
Why MX Telecom?
I really wanted to work in a small company, rather than being an anonymous cog in a giant corporate machine. I wanted the work that I do to be noticed and valued, along with the opportunity to carve out and shape my own role in the company rather than having it predetermined. Most new graduates will never meet the directors of the company they work for, whereas I sit just metres away in the same office and can walk over and talk to them at any time.
I actually found MX by accident when a recruiter pushed a job in the direction of my housemate, but he was already sorted and mentioned it to me. I applied, and came to interview. I was impressed by the people I met and by the setup here, and felt that MX had exactly what I was looking for.
The role also looked good, as I was keen for something that would use and extend upon my technical knowledge that I had gained doing my degree in computer science, without being an out and out software developer.
- July 2007
Matthew Hodgson, Media & Systems Project Manager
Joined in April 2003, studied Physics and Computer Science
My Role
I joined MX Telecom in 2003 as a Software Developer, at which point the technical team was made up of four people. Since then, the company has grown from a startup to a mature small/medium outfit - and over that time my role has evolved similarly.
Initially I started off as a one man team developing our Interactive Television Platform - not what I expected from a company primarily concerned (at that point) with SMS aggregation & applications, but a very close match to my personal interests in graphics and digital media. Since then the company's flexibility has allowed me to work on a huge variety of different projects from different technical disciplines and problem spaces - every aspect of the TV platform from admin webapp to hardware platform; experimental prototypes for our initial MMS connectivity; building the corporate intranet; maintaining our VOIP connectivity; graphic design of the MX Telecom brand; prototyping and building our next generation video telephony gateway and applications; etc.
Nowadays I head up two teams; one specialising in media processing (compositing, encoding/decoding, transport, storage, etc.) across all aspects of the company - and the other a systems administration team for providing our customer-facing and internal systems infrastructure. Essentially these teams formalise the duties I had in the past, and allow others to help out in getting them done. About 75% of my time is still spent designing or writing software - the rest now being more personnel related, be it supporting the existing members of my teams or recruiting new ones!
Why MX Telecom?
The main attraction for me at MX continues to be the variety of the work - be it solving smaller problems in one field, or building whole new platforms with bleeding edge technology in another. The enthusiasm and ambition of the company as a whole as we expand into new business areas provides the excitement of one startup after another - only building on more experience, and with somewhat easier funding. Likewise, the closely knit social community of a startup persists - the culture makes it a genuinely fun place to work. Having experienced work in huge consultancies, new-born startups, public sector R&D labs & large engineering companies in the past, I personally feel that MX has got the balance about right.
- July 2007
Tristan Mills
Joined in August 2005, studied Computer Science
My Role
As a Software Developer I have worked on several products including the SMS Gateway, our oldest product which is central to nearly all our operations, and the Charge To Account Gateway which is out newest product and amongst other things implements the PayForIt platform.
This has enabled me to work on all sorts of Java development such as complex webapp based systems, low level Java coding and optimisation and newer technologies such as Hibernate and Spring. I've also designed and implemented new databases and many shell script utilities for day to day management and statistics calculation.
Much of my work has been in close contact with the mobile networks integrating with their networks and writing network specific applications.
Why MX Telecom?
I was looking for a job in a small company having experienced working for a large company as part of a hundred strong team. MX Telecom provided everything I wanted from a workplace. Working as part of a small team in close contact with management but with plenty of room to decide on implementation details myself and to contribute my own ideas. It's also a very friendly place to work with a good social side meaning you can get to know everyone in the company.
- Sept 2007
