On Readify...

Working for Readify is like being in an RPG. Every gig is a quest, and it feels like you gain a level after each engagement.

My geek origin story

I wrote my first code on an Amiga500. I implemented an adventure game from a book I borrowed from my school library. Pretty much all I did back then was play Atari at home or on the Tandy PC my friend had. Games via tape - ah the memories!

Coolest programming thing I've done

It's a national secret. I could tell you, but men in suits would kill me. Then you.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

In my focus area - the move beyond the first wave of Agile.

Scrum is getting global adoption and recognition, but it really is only the beginning of the thought shift out of the world of the rigid plan and into empirical process. Lean thinking, Kanban etc. are all getting attention and will grow even further over the next few years.

Generally - the cloud and SaaS.

We're seeing it on just about every device we touch. As a business owner being able to move my utility services into managed environments so I can focus on what I do best excites me.

What attracted me to working at Readify

The quality of the people that I'd get to engage with. Readify staff are highly interactive and passionate across a number of topics. If you need an opinion on something there's no doubt you'll find it within the company!

My favourite thing about Readify

The conversations, the drive to engage with the community and the sheer amount of knowledge the guys are able to share.

My geeky pastimes

I write code for PDF Ink (http://pdfink.com), and read a lot of books. I do a bit of public speaking so I'm usually working on a new talk, or refining an existing one as well.

Testimonial

For our project, Readify offered excellent project management and technical expertise. They demonstrated a very high level of professionalism, by understanding how to implement all our requirements quickly, efficiently and on budget. We are extremely pleased with the final outcome.

Jason Jiang, Senior Project Manager

Testimonial

WorkCover WA engaged Readify to help rebuild our core business systems. With Readify employing some of the industry’s best technical consultants in .NET development, the overall engagement was exceptionally cooperative and flexible.”

Galina Louw, IT Manager at Workcover

Testimonial

Webjet has worked with Readify on our travel platform since 2006. During this time they have demonstrated expert knowledge in the .NET platform and helped execute on our business vision. I would recommend Readify to any organisation with a serious commercial web presence.

Richard Noon, Global Finance & Technology Manager

Testimonial

We engaged Readify to provide direction on the approach we should take with our TFS strategy. They were able to understand and evaluate our requirements before providing a detailed plan for implementation. I found Readify’s service to be very professional and was impressed with their expertise and experience with the TFS product on the whole.

Joseph D’Intini, Application Services Manager

My geek origin story

In 2005/2006 I was working in a computer retail store doing both Tech work and Retail Sales. It was here I started on the software developer path by writing some internal apps. I sent myself to TechEd in 2006 to try and learn more. Mitch and Tatham were running a dev`garten, which I attempted to help out with.

Over TechEd I met many Readify staff and went out for drinks with them. Inspired I went home and worked on improving. Five years later the people that inspired me are my colleges and I have never worked with such a great group of helpful people.

Coolest programming thing I've done

Implementing a server side rules engine as an exchange routing agent with a full WPF configuration tool, dynamically generated UI's, server side in process impersonation and other interesting challenges. Very fun project and made a massive difference for the company saving staff a heap of time manually processing emails.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

Windows 8/WinRT and TPL/Async compiler support in .net 4.5.

What attracted me to working at Readify

The people working for Readify and the culture.

My favourite thing about Readify

Having access and working with so many extremely talented people has helped me grow far quicker that I would have elsewhere.

My geeky pastimes

Apart from writing way too much open source software, I do Rock'n'Roll dancing.

My geek origin story

I came into the geek game a bit late... At 6 years old my dad brought home our first computer - an IBM PS/2 running MS-DOS 3. It took me a few days, but I was soon writing batch scripts and tearing up Police Quest.

Fast forward 6 years to at 13 years old I managed to replace a burnt out PSU in my Intel 486. A couple years later (at 15) I picked up VB and decided I liked writing apps.

Coolest programming thing I've done

For my thesis project at university I was asked to build a GPS navigation application for Pocket PC 2003.

After a few weeks of fiddling with parsing GIS data and dealing with Lat/Longs, I had a positioning app. A month or so later I dealt with the limitations of 8MB of RAM and added dynamic maps. Another couple of months pass with a modified version of the A* algorithm and some sound bites I'd managed to get navigation working.

By the end of the project I'd managed to complete a working prototype of the GPS navigation application and somehow found time to write a couple thousand words on how it all worked.

This was also my introduction to .NET and the Microsoft eco-system.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

Mobility... People are walking around with very powerful devices in their pockets and expecting to be able to do anything they want at any time. It's important that our industry helps enable consumers to achieve this by building software experiences that are productive and captivating.

What attracted me to working at Readify

I first discovered Readify by participating in a few training courses that were led by their consultants. I remember thinking that the people who led the course were very intelligent and great at what they were doing. It inspired me to better myself and reach their standards.

Not long later I found myself looking for a career path and discovered Readify were hiring. It was a no-brainer really. Readify consultants had inspired and encouraged me to want to be one of the best in the industry. Joining them gave me the opportunity to do just that.

My favourite thing about Readify

Readify offer me the flexibility, encouragement and opportunity to improve myself. Professional Development time is crucial in developing my skills. Combining it with the opportunities to work on challenging and interesting projects allows me to constantly challenge myself and keeps me at the top of my game.

My geeky pastimes

Write code... write code... think about writing code... and write code. :-)

My geek origin story

When I was 3 years old my Dad (a programmer) brought a computer home from work. It wasn't long and I had found the games, starting with Reversi and moving on to Cosmo, Fairy Godmother and Lemmings. It didn’t take long before I knew I wanted to make my own games.

Move forward 20 years and my interests have broadened quite a lot and I'm excited by the problems other than boredom that can be solved with software.

Coolest programming thing I've done

It’s difficult to name a single thing here; so much of what I do tickles my fancy as being cool. One of my favourite projects was an API for a reprogrammable keyboard. The keyboard could have complex macros bound to any key on the keyboard; every single key could be reprogrammed. More recently I’ve worked on a library which enables you to update applications in place using NuGet. I find it pretty awesome to be able to publish a new NuGet package and see my app automatically update in the background.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

It sounds cliché, but I’m going to have to go with cloud computing. I have a side business taking advantage of cloud infrastructure and the flexibility it offers is fantastic. As a small business owner I don’t want to have to worry about maintaining hardware I just want somewhere to run my applications.

What attracted me to working at Readify

I read quite a lot of blogs in the .net space and after a while I started to notice a trend; a lot of people who consistently had good advice and interesting topics worked at Readify and they seemed to love doing so.

My favourite thing about Readify

I love that I can fire off an email when I’m facing a problem I haven’t seen before and immediately have access to 70+ other brilliant developers experience. Quite often someone will have faced a similar problem before and can point me in the right direction. This isn’t limited to just technical subjects either, it is also helpful for advice how to best encourage positive change in the team I'm engaged with.

My geeky pastimes

I work on an application designed to help small business owners in a particular niche run their businesses without so much mucking around with paper. Currently a beta version is being used by 3 businesses.

If I have any time after that (very rare these days) there is always open source projects, games and Lego to keep me entertained.

My geek origin story

The coolest presents I was given as a child were always the things that could be taken apart to see how they worked. My grandparents bought me a beautiful, blue pedal scooter for my birthday and I loved it. I had it in pieces that afternoon. They were horrified, but it was the best present ever.

My parents bought me a book for Christmas: "The IBM PC for Kids from 8 to 80". It was 1984, I was five years old, and the rest is history.

Coolest programming thing I've done

Old-school? Using MS Debug to write an 8086 assembly language PutPixel routine, then calling it from GW-BASIC.

Rewrote chunks of a core transaction processing engine for one of Europe's largest payment service providers. If you've bought anything online in Europe, you've probably run my code :)

Hottest topic in our industry right now

We're only barely scratching the surface of location- and context-aware computing. With unprecedented processing power in our pockets - and backed by cloud computing - this is going to be big...

What attracted me to working at Readify

Readify's reputation in the industry as the best. Readify had (and has) such an impressive presence at community events, conferences and in the open source world.

My favourite thing about Readify

1. Smart people.
2. Smart people.
3. Awesome culture and working environment.
4. Smart people.
5. Latest technology.
6. Smart people.

My geeky pastimes

This Christmas, I'm going to reprogram a Roboraptor to chase my baby daughter :)

Final words

Readify feels like home. We're looking for other people who'll feel the same way.

My geek origin story

When I was in late primary / early high school I attended a holiday program involving lego, code and electronics. I'd always been someone who had to know how it worked. My dad would bring old telephones home from work and give me a screw driver and let me go to town with tinkering (and more than one electrical shock). So when the promise of doing what I wanted with these strange combination of statements on a computer and a pile of Lego came along it was ON.

After completing the basic tasks I set about changing the parameters. What if I change this number? Oh look it gets a lot faster, and if I combine it with a change to the looping statement I can make it go round one way then reverse itself. The power was intoxicating...

Coolest programming thing I've done

I wrote a file system reader (for a virtual file system).

Hottest topic in our industry right now

As of today, Flash Mobile being killed.

What attracted me to working at Readify

The chance to work with people I respect in the industry.

My favourite thing about Readify

The social aspect.

My geeky pastimes

Build CMSs and blog engines.

Final words

I like green eggs and ham.

Testimonial

Mater chose to undertake an ambitious project to develop a complex, touch-screen bedside application. We engaged Readify who came back with a range of implementation options to suit our needs. The project got off to a flying start with great momentum and that carried through the entire engagement. We now have a high quality product that we maintain and enhance ourselves built on a solid foundation provided by Readify.

Andrew Newton, Applications Manager

What makes Readify so successful?

I think Readify’s success can be distilled into three words – simplicity, logic and respect.

Simplicity - People who work at Readify tackle difficult business problems by looking for the simplest solution first. Simplicity is not easy but it is elegant; it requires great skill to drive simplicity out of complex business problems and deliver software that is intuitive and productive. This comment may surprise some of my colleagues at Readify – but everything seems complex from within. With fresh eyes, Readify’s approach is pleasingly simple.

Readify operates via business tapas; breaking larger problems into small portions that encourage conversation and consumption. I get that and it works.

What makes Readify so successful?

Logic - Readify people constantly debate business and software development issues. Constructive debate is at the heart of Readify and why the team consistently delivers excellent software. It’s vibrant collaboration in action. Debates are ongoing and passionate but logic wins over emotion. Business process and software development decisions are based on logic and this is re-assuring.

What makes Readify so successful?

Respect – With a singular focus on attracting and keeping great people, Readify has fostered an environment of peer respect. This healthy, respectful and outcome-oriented culture is achieved because of a recruitment process based on inclusion. Readify developers are intimately involved in recruitment of new developers; the coding tests are demanding, the technical & cultural interviews are challenging and the entry bar remains high. A culture of respect is constantly re-enforced.

The transparency of communications within Readify is beyond anything I have seen in my career. Why is this? I think it is a manifestation of a culture of respect. Respect engenders trust. Trust engenders confidence; confidence engenders belief and a positive outlook. So instead of protecting information, Readify promotes transparency and thereby you have a virtuous circle of disclosure.

What’s it like to be part of the Readify team?

It’s invigorating and challenging in equal doses. It’s about looking forward and not looking back – managing the future through a ‘developers’ lens – a lens where everyone knows what’s just around the corner; the uncertainty of many other corners! It is about a collective confidence, that together with our clients, we can help businesses navigate through the software development maze; driving productivity through great software and we do it better than most.

My appraisal of Readify is immensely positive but it only reflects the positive culture within. Our employees, whether they realise it or not, are granted flexibilities and freedoms like no other organisation I have seen – this is repaid in spades with an engaged and collaborative workforce delivering great services to our customers. Not everything is perfect but it’s not a perfect world.

My geek origin story

The first computer I had was an Amiga 500. I fondly remember programming some BASIC with it, but it was around that time I also discovered video games - and they distracted me for a good few years until I was in high school. I did some web programming using Javascript and HTML (I recall DHTML being a buzzword, I think) and I've been hooked ever since...

Coolest programming thing I've done

I've been fortunate to build touch applications in the past, and those have always been fun and challenging. To put aside the assumptions you've learned about how a user interacts with an application - as well as how the user interface needs to adapt - is an wonderful learning experience.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

The web versus native debate - the ubiquitous browser and the desktop and mobile UI framework fighting it out for mindshare. Passionate people on both sides of the debate and the rapid evolution of the mobile and tablet space make this a very interesting topic.

What attracted me to working at Readify

Crossing paths with Readify guys at local user groups - was always fun to debate topics and pick their brains about concepts and ideas over beers after events.

My favourite thing about Readify

The people.

I've been fortunate enough to work on projects in three different states, which means hanging out with people in the company that I wouldn't typically get to meet more than once or twice a year. A great bunch of guys to work with - technically, professionally and personally.

My geeky pastimes

Testimonial

Readify's knowledge and understanding of Microsoft's technology and their comprehension of our business needs helped our team achieve the highly robust, scalable solution we have today. Readify provided expert support and we look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.

Simon Raik-Allen, Chief Technology Officer - MYOB Australia

My geek origin story

Started programming Basic on a Commodore 64 in primary school and then Assembly before finally moving to a PC in high school.

Coolest programming thing I've done

I wrote a database update script file that is both valid Batch script and valid T-SQL at the same time so it can be run interactively from SQL Server Management Studio or executed as part of an installer.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

Continuous Delivery is the hot topic right now because the most important thing in software development is to ship. And also to ship the right thing while it is still relevant. If you remove the pain and risk of delivering software frequently you can focus on building what the user needs.

What attracted me to working at Readify

I saw the knowledge and talent demonstrated by Readify consultants at various user groups and conferences and decided I want to work with people like that.

My favourite thing about Readify

Working with many different clients and solving different problems each week.

My geeky pastimes

I contribute to a few open source projects and I also like to buy and assemble Lego Technic models.

My geek origin story

My earliest inspiration for computing came in the form of the Usborne Guide to Computers and its sister publications of the early 80s. Before long I was one of the ones regularly huddled around the warm green glow of an already aged Apple II in the school library as it whined, whired and crunched its way through the likes of Robot Oddessy and LoadRunner. Not long after that, my parents were nice enough to purchase a brand new Amstrad CPC 464 with a massive 22k programmable memory, an inbuilt tape deck and my launch into the magical world of writing software had officially begun. I was absolutely transfixed by the ability to not only replicate what I saw in movies, television and books (albeit in a crude 8 bit manner) but also explore virtual worlds completely of my own making. In coming years, seemingly everything from Tron light cycles through to virtual pets through to intricate tales involving knights and dragons was up for creation and play. I was addicted to infinite possibilities and remain so to this day.

Coolest programming thing I've done

With any luck, whatever the most recent project was. The act of creating a piece of software is still a vaguely magical process to me and the act of working through a problem to arrive at the other end with a useful, elegant and hopefully pragmatic solution in a timely manner is one that still holds me entranced. Sometimes, like a devious puzzle, just the act of finding a working solution is an achievement unto itself. Other times it might not be the solution that's special but more a case of who the software is helping. And sometimes it's just a tiny piece of code that scratches a particular itch so well that it's impossible not to smile as one turns it over in one's mind, inspecting it from every angle and appreciating it like a jeweler might appreciate a newly cut gem.

Hottest topic in our industry right now

Individual topics come and go but the aspect that really intrigues me is how much computing is ceasing to be "technology" and just being another (hopefully unnoticed) part of everyone's day. As common as the table or the chair. For over 50 years, we've had software that requires humans to actively manage its existence. Feeding it and maintaining it like some sort of extremely fragile and naive child. With the arrival of almost ubiquitous communication and seemingly endless amounts of processing power available to even the smallest devices, my hope is that the bulk of the software produced ceases to be the fragile naive child and starts being the intelligent and discreet concierge of one's life. Quickly, efficiently and competently working behind the scenes to ensure its user's day is an effortless series of pleasant surprises.

What attracted me to working at Readify

Receiving some training from Readify (or Monash.Net as it was known back then) and really being inspired by how enthusiastic and knowledgeable the presenter was about software development.

My favourite thing about Readify

Passion - It's everywhere. It doesn't matter whether it's writing code, setting policy or hiring new staff, everyone seems genuinely passionate about their area of responsibility within Readify. Actively enjoying one's day is infinitely better than just surviving it and it's even better when those around you feel the same way.

Humanity - The joy of being able to share a story or a laugh with someone is not a dictated by an org chart within Readify. People may have different parts to play within the company but that doesn't remove the fact that they're living breathing human beings and not two dimensional stereotypes of the job description.

Inexperience - More specifically, mine. I love being the "dumbest guy in the room". It means there is always someone who may know something more or be able to point me in the right direction. If I'm not discovering something new and interesting regularly then I know I'm not asking enough questions.

My geeky pastimes

Either writing computer games or helping others to do so. Games tend to represent some of the most bleeding edges ideas on all sorts of ideas including user interaction, performance, story telling and the art of assembling software itself. Plus who doesn't like games?

Final words

The pigeons fly at dawn.