Kallan Jones - Curious, Clever, Capable, Composed, Creative

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Kallan recently joined us from Sharesies. We've loved having his positive energy here at Octave, so we thought we would ask him a few questions...

Hey Kallan, can you tell us a bit about your background?

I grew up in Tauranga, where I spent countless hours rowing for the local high school and club. If I wasn’t rowing, I was helping out my dad with DIY projects around the house, or playing video games, lots of video games. I have always been interested in how computers work, and eventually, curiosity got the better of me, I wanted to know how to build websites and apps – to take any idea and turn that idea into something tangible. Using technology is like magic! I decided to head to The University of Waikato to study Computer Science.

What were you doing before you joined Octave?

Before Octave, I was working as a senior developer at Shareises for a few years, a fintech company based here in New Zealand that aims to provide equal money opportunities for everyone. I spent a lot of my time working with the marketing team to build out the public-facing websites using a modern and scalable solution for unique and shared content across both New Zealand and Australia. Another big piece of work was enabling A/B testing inside the Explore section of the product and working closely with the data and analytics team to accurately report the results from these tests. While working at Sharesies, the number of investors steadily grew from 150,000 to over 600,000! It was incredible to see the amount of growth that the company went through, and the Sharesies team was a blast to work with.

What interested you most about working at Octave?

The idea of working on a variety of projects across many different industries made Octave an easy choice. Not to mention the team is top notch and if the work they had delivered in the past was any reflection of future work, I was keen to join the team and work on some new and exciting projects.

How does strategic thinking inform your approach to development and technology?

Understanding the bigger picture is the first part of the puzzle – enabling us to break down the problems into manageable chunks, and plan out a scalable approach to fit the business needs.

What do you love doing outside of work?

Continuing on from my childhood helping my dad with DIY projects, I’ve been building out my collection of tools to complete DIY projects on our 1940s house. There seems to be a never-ending stream of work that needs to be done. And yes, I’m still into video games (Hell divers currently!).

Now that you’re here at Octave, what’s it been like?

It’s been great, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the team, and I’m getting a good understanding of our clients and what’s in the project pipeline. I enjoy working with the design team and pushing the boundaries of good design, which makes for more interesting projects. I’m currently working on a couple of pretty exciting projects that are going live in the next couple of months.

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