Take the Mic - Magda Cembor

Tell us a bit about your role at Cleo and the challenges you’re trying to solve.

I’m a backend engineer in a team called Squids 🦑 . We are a part of a bigger pillar called Spend less than you earn. Which helps Cleo users manage their spending better. We are currently working on ‘Ins & Outs’ which provides an overview of the user's income and spending, where we help users to stay on track with their money.

Is this your first remote role? How have you found it?

Remote working can definitely be challenging at first, especially when you are a junior starting your first dev role, however it does get easier with time so hang in there 💙

This is my second remote role, and it’s very different from my first remote role that I started last year. That was in a smaller company where I didn’t have many interactions with other employees, a lack of social events made it a bit lonely. 

How has Cleo been compared to other companies you’ve worked at?

I’ve never worked somewhere where everyone was so considerate of others. What has struck me the most is that everything that I was told during the recruitment process turned out to be true. People support and care for each other, everyone is super nice, and not because they have to be, but because they actually are 😀 I enjoyed the onboarding process as well, there was plenty of time to get used to the lingo, processes and the codebase.

How would you describe our engineering culture?

The first thing that comes to mind is what it is not: it is definitely not a blame culture. We do live by our engineering values and when in doubt we refer back to them on a daily basis. 

What’s one standout favourite memory of your time here?

I think that would be the first social I joined in my second week - Taco Tuesday 🌮  that we spent cooking together on zoom. I can’t believe how much fun that was and how comfortable I felt with people from my team I had only just met.

What piece of advice would you give yourself on day one at Cleo?

Don’t worry! It’s only the first week that’s pretty heavy with onboarding meetings 😅 The codebase is huge and might seem scary at first, but it’s very well organised and written by considerate coders so you’ll be fine 🙌

Interested in joining the Cleo team? Good! Check out our careers site.