Lightspeed offers cloud-based software solutions for retail businesses and we provide Point of Sale and e-commerce software to customers. I am in the Identity and Access Management team of X-Series. Merchants need to know who their employees are, what they can do within the application and how they are accessing the application. The focus of our team is to solve problems related to each of those points. As a software developer in the team, my daily work includes being involved in meetings, reviewing code created by our team and writing code, where I spend most of my time on. I also work closely with other senior members of my team. The tasks I work on depending very much on the problem that we are trying to solve or the product that we want to deliver. For instance, in this cycle, we are working on migrating the “Add user” page in the app from Angular to React, as we are continuing to work towards getting X-Series ready for Localization. So the tasks that I am currently focusing on are writing React components.
I grew up in China and I moved to New Zealand with my family when I was 13. Ever since I was a kid, Maths has always been my favourite subject. I love solving maths problems. There’s nothing more rewarding than working on a maths problem and finally arriving at the correct solution. When it was time to go to uni and not surprisingly, I chose Maths as my major. I was enjoying my Maths courses as I imagined at the start. Then in my second semester of uni, I took a course that literally changed my future - COMPSCI 101. It was nothing more than an introduction to programming using Python, but it had opened a whole new world for me. I instantly fell in love with programming and so I decided to add Computer Science as my second major. Since then I was keeping a good balance between Maths and CS at uni as well as working on a few side projects with my friends. I graduated at the end of 2021 and joined Vend by Lightspeed as an intern in the Billing and Expansion team at the same time. I joined the Identity Access and Management team after my internship and I’ve been with Lightspeed for 5 months now.
Of course! Anyone with a good knowledge of software development and great programming skills is able to do this job. But in general, a degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science or a similar field would be helpful. You also need to have effective communication skills as often we are working together as a team so you would have to express your ideas clearly and also be a good listener.
I love that we are getting challenged to solve mysteries every day. Usually, the mystery is “why doesn’t the codework”. You get to develop different hypotheses about what went wrong and eventually arrive at the conclusion. It is a very rewarding feeling once you’ve solved it. The thing that I love about working at Lightspeed is that we have very flexible working hours so we get to manage our own time.
There’s no limitation to this job really as long as you are interested in new technologies and passionate about what you are doing. I think one of the biggest limitations is that you can never stop learning. You will need to learn continuously to keep up to date with fast-changing trends.
For my interview there was a behavioural round where some common behavioural questions for developers were asked, followed by a technical round where there was a live coding section and then assess you on some technical questions. There were no take-home/technical assessments for interns. It was overall quite a smooth process.
I definitely see a career path for someone who is in the role of intern or Junior developer at Lightspeed. I am now a Junior Software Developer and I look forward to becoming an intermediate and eventually becoming a senior developer one day. There’s still a long way to go with my life at Lightspeed.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are taking place in Lightspeed every day. My team for example is quite a diverse team. we come from 4 different countries in a team of 6 and all of us have very different backgrounds. Another good example would be in the innovation week that was held earlier, there was a #MakeItTogether award for the most diverse team. The list just goes on.