Meet the Innovators

ALD also invests heavily in its staff. We all have free Pluralsight and MSDN accounts. In addition, ALD encourages its staff to get educated on a wide variety of external courses. On top of this we regularly host our own training talks, delivered by developers for developers. I have learnt so much since joining!

Development work is completely iterative. I really enjoy demonstrating our work to the users first hand every two weeks. It’s great to see their delight at the product’s onward development and to be able to discuss first hand any issues that might arise. This results in a final product that does exactly what our customers need it to do, with no hidden surprises.

We embrace a culture of openness - there are no empires here. It's refreshing to be able to approach anybody and to be able to have the discussions that need to take place. This philosophy of everybody swimming in the same direction, makes ALD a fun place to work!

The vast majority of my time is purely spent developing. However, we do have ceremonies for sprint planning, refinement and retro. Our team leaders and business analysts do a good job of sheltering us from too many meetings, meaning we can concentrate on the technical side. The development projects are engaging, well managed and most importantly the team are really friendly and helpful.

One of my defining achievements is getting a new internal underwriting app out (in record time) and working closely with the underwriters to make sure what we were producing was exactly what they requested.

ALD passionately encourage CSR activities, and I started getting involved within the CSR committee (as I’d been part of one at my last company). Since then I have helped guide the direction of the working group at the monthly meetings and taken a number of paid CSR days to volunteer with a charity that matters to me.

I’m responsible for setting up new starters, decommissioning leavers and amending change of roles within the whole business. In addition I also manage the hardware that users require, and this means looking after building PC’s, Laptop’s and Surface books as well as stock management.

The team are fantastic at supporting me considering I had little to no experience in this particular role and that has given me the confidence to look at my career options, which ALD are amazing in supporting all individuals with.

 
Another great reason to work for ALD is their ongoing work into mental health education and acknowledgement, I am now MHFA trained and looking forward to the giant leaps the company is making in ensuring that staff and their mental health are put first. I can honestly say, I now love coming to work and that was not the case for many other businesses I have previously worked for.  

My daily routine changes day to day but typically, it consists of a daily stand-up at 09.45, possibly a refinement session and other meetings around current work. I’ll then work on a story from our current sprint, or help with testing. Certain days also include activities such as the LIVE release or prepping for demo.

I’m lucky that at ALD, I get the chance to be involved in a large variety of projects. This suits my preferred working style as I like to get involved in as much as possible. As a result, I don’t feel I have one big achievement but rather a lot of smaller achievements and projects that I can say I am proud to have worked on.  These include our content management system, our emails process, scheduling and most recently our new special offers journey.

The best thing about ALD is by far the people I get to work with each day. The business and development team as a whole are friendly, full of character and always willing to help when asked. The team around me are fantastic, we are in constant good spirits and work very well as a single unit.

The flexibility of the work is another benefit. Both in the sense of agile development, meaning I go home each day feeling achieved and positive, even on challenging days; also in the sense of the technologies we work with here. Focusing mainly on C# and Angular, we are actively encouraged to try new ideas and use other technologies. I have ample opportunity here to get involved in anything I would like to. I truly believe ALD is invested in me as an employee. Giving me the time and resources I require to train to develop my skillset.

Working within the Customer Relations Team in our Bristol office certainly keeps me occupied! We are available for our customers from 8am to 6pm, and we manage a lot of phone conversations in that time. Some customers could be calling to enquire about when their next rental payment is due; others could be asking about the particulars of their next MOT. You cannot predict what you will be dealing with next.

This variety is one of the greatest joys of the job. It means that no two days are the same, and it also keeps me on my toes! The Customer Relations Team is, in most cases, the first point of contact for our customers – but it’s also a lot more than that. I love making sure that our customers end up where they want to be, with their questions answered and their problems solved. It’s about making the whole journey a successful one.

Of course, I have an overarching goal, which is to manage the provision of the best possible customer service through our phone lines and email systems. But there are so many ways of achieving that goal, and so many different questions coming in, that I always have to adapt to new circumstances. Investigating and resolving a query from one of our customers, or from a dealership or broker, is a challenge which I relish.

Thankfully, the flexibility of my role is matched by the flexibility of my hours. I work longer hours on two days of the week, and then shorter hours on the remaining three. This enables me to continue coaching gymnastics outside of my job at ALD. 

I haven’t been at ALD for very long – only a few months – but I already feel fully settled in. This can be explained, in part, by the quality of the people around me. As a Business Analyst, I work closely with ALD’s customers, as well as with a range of people inside the business, including our development team. It is a strong and very friendly network.

I also happen to love the work that I’m doing. My role is to identify and document business requirements, and then to support our developers as they create new technologies to meet those requirements. I really enjoy seeing the development team do its magic, perhaps because I have a background in software myself. It feels as though I have a front-row seat for some of the most exciting changes happening in mobility today.

It all adds up to a job in which there are genuinely no dull moments. And I think that will still be true after many more months!

My role involves working alongside the wider Marketing, Product and Development teams to ensure that our products, platforms and interactions are designed with the customer at their very core. Steve Jobs famously said, ‘You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology’. I’ve adopted this statement as my mantra! It may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many companies fail to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and, as a result, struggle to deliver a meaningful proposition that actually addresses real customer needs.

In practice, this means my role is hugely varied and no day is ever the same! One day I may be working closely with our Data Analyst to build up a clearer picture of our customer segments based on how they interact with our online channels. The next day I may be out and about visiting customers to better understand their goals and challenges, while witnessing first-hand how they interact with our products and services.

I’ll often work independently writing content and messaging for marketing campaigns and customer communications to ensure we’re speaking to them in their language. I’ll also support our UX designer with website audits to understand how we can apply a more customer-centric experience online.

The best thing about my role is that I get to work with so many different people across the business, each with their own unique set of skills, experiences and perspectives. It means that I’m constantly learning from others and developing in new areas.

How would I describe a ‘typical day’? Well – honestly no day is exactly the same. As part of the marketing team, my role is very varied. In a day I could be organising an event, editing a video, reviewing FCA compliance and designing a web page all before lunch. As you can probably tell, there’s always loads to going on. We’re a very busy team here at ALD and everyone pulls together to get the job done.

With a wide variety of projects running at any one time, our team works closely with nearly every other department in the business. This means that you get to understand other aspects of the business quicker than perhaps other departments do. If I was asked to pick one thing that I enjoyed most about working at ALD Automotive (apart from the free bar at the Xmas party). It would have to be the fact that my strengths are recognised and encouraged. What’s more, there’s training on offer to keep developing.

My work for the past 30 years has ranged from New York City, Silicon Valley and now Bristol. I'm a seasoned programme manager from the United States and chose to return to a position closer to web development when I moved to the UK. I've loved most of my jobs but ALD is my favourite due to the opportunities for learning new things, reasonable deadlines and talented but fun staff.

ALD really is an enticing company to work for, especially if you've hesitated from employment in corporate environments. Somehow ALD has managed to keep the intimacy of a family-owned business with the security and support of a global financial company.