More Than a Senior Developer - Gavin Clohessy

Tell us about your role at Decision time.

I am a Senior Developer in Decision Time and I look after the grant management system. This is for councils within Northern Ireland and England that disseminate grants through the system, providing aid to the council, to various organisations, and to different interest groups that may need funding from the local council.

How long have you been with the company and how did you come to work here?

I've been with the company for over six years, and I applied for the job through a local recruitment company. My wife and I were away for our anniversary in Albufeira in Portugal whenever I found out I got the job. So it was a nice surprise.

Describe a typical day working at Decision Time.

The first thing I do is review what I have to do for the day. It usually takes about 15-20 minutes and we have staff meetings every day so we have a sprint within the development team. As soon as that's over, I start doing the tasks set for myself for the day. The tasks can be anything from organising other staff members, training them, helping them out and development work. I work on tasks primarily throughout the system and some tasks on the meeting, risk and strategic objective management systems.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

What I enjoy most is working with the people, working with customers and other staff members. I'm a very people-orientated person and like working within a team, although I also like working on my own. But I always find that communication with people helps me to thrive. Without a doubt, it's the best thing I do within my day-to-day role; speaking to people, helping them out, working alongside the team members and just getting the job done is very rewarding.

What are the biggest challenges of your role?

The biggest challenge of my role is that there's never enough time. Time just always seems to pass by, and unfortunately, whenever it's going so quick you want to get something done. And unfortunately, there's just never enough time in the day to get everything you want to be done. But the good thing is you've got a team you can always rely on to support you with the task you have to do. When deadlines and tasks are critical, the team swarms on it. We understand and get the work done in the timeframe that we need it done. It's a relaxed environment. Everybody has time-critical tasks to do, but we always get it done.

Tell us something interesting about yourself.

I would say that probably the most interesting points in my life are I have two children, I've travelled quite a lot of the world and I like riding my motorbike. I got my bike license the year that my son was born in 2018, and I enjoy riding, riding around the country on that and just exploring a wee bit.

And, I'm a massive fan of ice cream, so if I'm riding on my bike, it’s probably to go to an ice cream shop cause I like finding ice cream shops and eating all the ice cream!

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