At KINTO, we have our own in-house Software Development team, building systems that are relevant to customers and which underpin our unique fleet management offering.

This is headed up by Vaughan Harris who was developing secure systems for government departments prior to joining KINTO.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and tell us more about your role here at KINTO? 

Vaughan: I joined the company from the defence industry over a decade ago as a Senior Software Developer. It was realised fairly quickly that I was blessed/cursed with the ability to describe technical problems at board-level without boring people too much(!), and I am not a half-bad people person, so I was promoted to run and manage the Software Development team a few months after joining. I’ve been doing that ever since, acting as team manager, technical lead and the occasional butt of my team’s jokes. My teams are DevOps-style and design, develop, test, deploy & maintain a suite of both customer-facing and in-house web applications, covering areas such as company vehicle quotations with rich UI, order management, ETL processes and tax calculators.

Cindy: I came to the UK over 20 years ago to study my Masters Degree in Portsmouth, still trying to understand English humour!

As a Project Manager at KINTO, I am responsible for managing all kinds of projects from Sharepoint, the Kestrel B to E upgrade, and most recently the pilot implementation of Microsoft Dynamics for the Driver Support team.

Viv: I’ve been at KINTO for 18 years! I started on the Customer Services Helpdesk – progressed to Supervisor – then moved over to the Quoting and Ordering team and progressed to Team Manager before moving into IT as the Software Tester and Systems Analyst in 2016.

Dave: I am originally from Cornwall, settling in Hampshire many moons ago after completing my degree in Portsmouth. I have since been a Software Developer working in the Defence and Automotive industries using numerous technologies. My current role in KINTO is as a Senior Software Developer building and maintaining software and solutions using the Microsoft Tech stack to support our business and our customers.

What do you enjoy the most about your job? 

Lee: Business Analysis is quite diverse, but I mainly enjoy collaborating with individuals and teams across various departments to understand what they need from our systems and how we might improve our processes to better deliver for our customers. As I’m relatively new to the team I’m also really enjoying learning from my colleagues to better understand my role.

Constance: I take great pleasure in helping others in their professional endeavours and streamlining their workflow processes. Software technologies are ever evolving so you are continuously having to learn new methods and techniques.

Dave: Problem solving is a fundamental part of Software Development and this brings many challenges. Analysing these problems and deriving solutions is very satisfying, especially when your designs come to fruition with applications being deployed to production environments. I also thoroughly enjoy the daily camaraderie of working as part of a great team.

Mike: My job involves resolving complex issues, so attention to detail is an essential trait in this profession, as is a passion for problem-solving. Communication skills are also important since DBAs are often working closely with developers and managers, I am extremely passionate about what I do and the team I work with.

Can you tell us more about your career highlights?  

Viv: Each time I got promoted was a highlight for me – Supervisor, Team Manager and then head-hunted for the software team 🙂

Mike: I was recently involved in a full migration to a new estate, rebuilding and upgrading our entire database infrastructure from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2016, an upgrade of our external OLTP system which required major internal structural changes and testing which was thought to have been a near impossible task but was achieved with no impact to our systems or business all thanks to an amazing supportive team, and last but not least the building and configuring of a fully functional pre-production database environment. But the biggest highlight would have to be the time I was chased by a goose and ran into a tree in front of the whole company.

Matt: Recreating the Autobid web front end whilst removing dependencies on the session object was a career highlight. It was such a hard job refactoring the whole application to remove over 1000 instances of the session object and seeing it go live with no issues was great.

Vaughan: I think an early highlight for me was a Senior Manager at the time believing in me and giving me the promotional step up that I needed but didn’t know I needed, if that makes sense. But really the main highlight has been building a team with such a cracking sense of camaraderie and support that I genuinely look forward to coming to work every day and achieving good things with great people – people who I can also look at as my friends as well as colleagues. We have one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the whole of KINTO and that is in part testament to how well we all get on.

In the wider business I’ve also dragged several colleagues on two 50k hikes for charity, got to drive some very cool cars and made a lot of good friends here.

What does a typical day look like for you at KINTO and what are you currently working on? 

Cindy: I am not a morning person, if you see me looking grumpy in the morning, it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s just me.😊 My day always involves constantly checking & updating project RAID logs and making sure my projects are successfully delivered on time, and also harassing the team for their actions. I don’t think I am very popular from that perspective!

I also manage change management within IT team; I make sure all the changes get properly analysed and tested before they are deployed to live.

Viv: Analysing requests for changes/new customers to the apps from the business. Implementing changes/new customers. Working with Dev team to discuss requirements. Testing these once implemented. Currently mainly working on the Microsoft Dynamics project – a workflow CRM product we are piloting with the helpdesk and 5 customers.

Lee: A typical day would involve reviewing service requests for changes to our internal apps, speaking with the requesters of the change to understand their requirements, documenting these and agreeing solutions with the developers. Current focus is on the implementation of Dynamics within the helpdesk and taking the learnings of this to improve current and future processes.

Constance: I’m currently working on a Mobile booking project, a self-serve online form which will automatically be sent to our nominated mobile SMR provision. Alongside developing projects, my duties encompass a wide range of responsibilities, such as configuring systems for new customers and maintaining existing applications.

What do you like to do outside of work?  

Matt: Defeating my Project Manager and BI team lead at badminton is a weekly highlight.

Cindy: I am very active person, playing badminton 2 to 3 times a week. I started sailing 7 years ago and I go out racing on a Sigma 33 yacht every Wednesday night and have competed in the Cowes Round the Island race a few times. I started offshore racing recently and have been across the English Channel to the French coast a few times. I have to say I enjoy ‘Round the Cans’ races more, as it’s more ‘fast and furious’.

This year I am going to join a J109 yacht for the ‘50th Rolex Fastnet Race’ which is a 690 nautical mile course from Cowes to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, via the Fastnet Rock. My biggest adventure so far!

Viv: I try to go to the gym 3 times a week – not sure that I can say I like it though. I play in a darts league for a local pub. Otherwise I spend my time with my family and badly-behaved dog!

Lee: I have a 6-month-old daughter called Evie, so 99% of my free time is concerned with keeping her alive, and as I’m obviously awake 19 hours of the day every day now that’s a lot of time to be concentrating on that. I also enjoy watching football.

How would you describe your role to a child?  

Vaughan: I actually have to do this quite a lot as I have twins aged 9! I would say: I spend the day with some nice people in a company, and we all work together to make stuff on computers to help that company run much better and make the people who work for that company and people who use that company happier.

Dave: Somebody tells me they want to use a computer to make their job easier. They tell me what they do now, and I write a program to tell a computer to do this instead. A program is a set of instructions to tell a computer what to do. When complete I make the person happy as they now have an easier job!

Mike: I would try to say something like, imagine large filing cabinets – much larger than buildings – and I am a large octopus with many arms capable of retrieving, storing and organising all the files super-fast and keeping the cabinets safe. This explanation is not limited to children; I find myself using this description equally with most adults.

Who inspires you? 

Constance: The motivation to pursue a career in programming originated from my computer studies teacher’s unwavering encouragement and the continued support of my line manager, colleagues, and even my spouse!

Mike: I am inspired by all with a positive and happy prospective on life, I have one motto in life if you cannot make one person smile and laugh in a day it is a day wasted.

Vaughan: I have a little boy with autism who struggles with a lot of daily behaviour that you and I take for granted. He never complains, and adapts to everything really well, and will always give something a go even if it obviously makes him uncomfortable. I use him as my little barometer for deciding if things are worth worrying about in the grand scheme of things. He gives me clarity and perspective without realising, and he will never know how much I love him for it.