You know when you see a picture of someone who you’ve only ever heard on the radio and they don’t look anything like you imagined? That’s kind of what starting a new job in the pandemic has been like.
Of course we have regular video calls so I knew pretty much what people looked like but when I finally met people in person on a team walk I realised that I had filled in all the characteristics that don’t come across on a call. Some people were taller, some shorter and other people were just different than I had expected. Subconsciously I had filled in the gaps that don’t come across on a conference call and I’m still surprised at how tall Ben is even though I’ve met him 3 or 4 times now.
I’m Fidelma and I started working at Daysix about 3 months ago. I’m a React Native developer and I work as part of the ScribePro team. I joined at a really exciting time, in the middle of adding a new Covid-19 screening feature to the Team app for the start of the football season. The ScribePro Team app allows sports clinicians to store medical records and injury data in real time (watch a short video about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjLBV2aQOLU). Although it was extremely busy and full on I really enjoyed joining in the middle of a time pressured project. It meant that I had to get to grips with the tech stack really fast and was immediately working on new features. Now that the Scottish Football team (and others) are using it to keep players and staff safe it feels totally worth the hard work and has even encouraged me to follow football (a little bit).
On top of the Team app we are now beginning to work on our First Aid and Events apps. These apps will digitalise the paper systems that exist for both first aid at work and events first aid, saving time and making it easier to manage medical incident data. I have a keen interest in prehospital care, before becoming a software developer I worked for a charity training people in first aid in Sub-Saharan Africa. I’m really excited to apply this experience in tech. It is amazing to work alongside emergency department consultants and designers to ensure evidence based design and to build apps that are good and do good.
Despite the pandemic it has been amazing to start with Daysix. Everyone has been so welcoming and I’m starting to feel very at home. Although slack video calls don’t quite make up for chats whilst waiting for the tea to brew, I feel very lucky to be part of such a trusting, fun and motivated team and work on a project I’m passionate about!