Ollie’s Whirlwind First Few Months at Harker

From developing new features, installing displays and (allegedly) hiding from the Metro Mayor, my first few weeks at Harker were quite something. When I got the job offer, I had no idea what I was in for - but I’m glad it turned out to be this kind of chaos.

My first few days as an employee were spent at Scapegoat 2025 - a chaotic, brilliant mashup of awards, tech talks, safety demos, and behind-the-scenes looks at how Harker and Jamescape do their thing. It was a great introduction for me, facilitating a good environment for me to get to know everyone and the kind of work culture Harker supports. It was a welcome breath of fresh air. After five years at KPMG, where I was basically Employee #27413B, it was a shock (in the best way) to be somewhere that remembers your name, and where “team-building” doesn’t just mean another mandatory PowerPoint session.

The day after Scapegoat, things got even more hectic. With the Metro Mayor of Liverpool scheduled to tour the newly opened offices at CENTRAL TECH, we spent the morning sprinting around the building installing information displays at the last minute. We managed to get the final screen mounted and running just as he was halfway through the tour, then promptly scattered to avoid being seen looking slightly too sweaty and suspicious for a calm office unveiling.

After the blazing intro, I jumped straight into my first development task - adding a permitted type system to our data structure links. This allows users to define what specific data structure types are allowed to be linked with other types of data structures, giving them tighter control and helping reduce chaos in larger, more structured setups. It was a deep dive into how the platform handles relationships and references, and a solid way to start getting familiar with the codebase (and all its quirks). It was also my first time using Go and MongoDB in a professional setting, which gave me a great opportunity to get acquainted with both the stack and how our systems are set up under the hood.

Since then, I’ve picked up a few more features, broken only a modest number of things, and slowly begun to navigate the unwritten rules of how things get done around here. There’s a lot happening, and no one’s standing over your shoulder, which is either freeing or mildly terrifying, depending on the day. But it works. And people care - not just about the product, but about doing things properly, which is rarer than it should be.

All in all, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve learned a lot, met some very capable people, and been trusted to get properly stuck in from the start. Things move quickly here, but there’s a strong sense of purpose behind it all - and just enough chaos to keep things interesting. I’m curious to see what comes next.