Well, time sure flies by doesn’t it? This week marks my one-year anniversary working at BioConnect (formerly Entertech Systems). After interviewing for the company during my final week at school, I became interested in the world of biometrics and was fascinated by what I thought was something out of a sci-fi novel. Working downtown Toronto was always a dream of mine, and I’ve always had a fascination in city life. So when I found out that BioConnect would be opening an office downtown, I couldn’t have been happier.
I was lucky enough to join the company right after graduating from York University (go Lions!). Like many others my age, I was unsure of what to expect on my first day, and was quite intimidated by working with a professional dev team. Having never worked in a big corporate office before, imposter syndrome was very real. All I knew for sure was that I was hired as a software developer, and that I’d start by focusing my efforts on improving the BioConnect TeamWorks application from the ground up. Needless to say I was just as excited, as I was nervous to start my next chapter.
TeamWorks is our lightweight team management application that ties in beautifully with our BioConnect identity platform. It essentially does all the basic administrative tasks required to run an efficient team. When I first joined the company, the application looked and felt a bit dated. It was clunky, a bit tired and most importantly somewhat complicated to use. I thought this was great news because I knew the team would be open to changing a good portion of the application. After building out mockups and discussing new features with the team, we were all on-board to give the application a major overhaul. Although the codebase was a tad messy, everyone understood that in the end, our efforts would pay off. It was definitely an uphill battle, but we would all face the hill together.
The following weeks were filled with late night coding sessions, lots of laughs and an immense amount of learning. The team leads were not the least bit scared to throw a new hire like myself into the deep end, and I could not thank them enough. I learned more in the first month working at BioConnect then I did in any of my previous roles working as a developer. There were no egos, no corporate ladders to traverse in order to get your voice heard, just one unified team all working towards the same goal. I quickly came to realize that at BioConnect every team member was seen as an equal, and that we all functioned as one large family.
From our family-style Rasta Pasta lunches, to impromptu meetings on sun-drenched patios, working at BioConnect has felt less like “work” but more like a collaborative learning space since day one. Simply put, it’s been one hell of a fun adventure. As I sit at my desk writing this blog post, it’s a pretty incredible feeling to look around and see a group of people, from all walks of life, working together to pursue one unified cause. I didn’t just find an employer, I found a home away from home and I’m incredibly thankful for that.
Cheers,
-Rohan