Navigating a Career in Tech & Avoiding Burnout | Amy Boyd | Formidable

Amy Boyd is an advisor to start-ups and the Engineering Manager at Formidable: a tech consultancy business that helps your team work smarter, by optimising your design and engineering practices and defining your software needs.

Amy is a self-taught coder who has worked in the start-up industry for many years and helped a wide range of team sizes and sectors, meaning she is adaptable and her knowledge is particularly expansive. She has recently taken a break from start-ups to join Formidable full time.

On the podcast, we speak about Amy's career, what she's learned along the way and some of the pitfalls to be aware of when navigating through your own career journey in tech. Being a self-taught coder and working across many disciplines of the industry, Amy has a breadth of knowledge in relation to managing a team, avoiding burnout, and how to approach members of your team who may be experiencing burnout. We also spoke about the pros and cons of the tech start-up world and some of the warning signs to look out for when joining a new start-up business.

Showtimes

0:40 - Insight into the service Formidable provides.

1:21 - What has changed since we had Chris Bolin (also from Formidable) on the podcast.

2:20 - Amy's role as Engineering Manager at Formidable and what it entails.

3:40 - Amy's Career history, being a self-taught coder and working in a wide variety of different technical environments.

5:50 - The pros and cons of the start-up world, and the difference between start-up and consulting.

9:20 - The warning signs when joining a new start-up - what to look out for.

10:30 - The tech industry and the realities of burnout.

11:50 - How to work with limited resources.

14:40 - The importance of tracking to see if features are a success.

19:36 - Hiring people who are young and moldable.

23:19 - The resources Amy relies on to stay ahead of the curve in tech.

26:30 - How Amy keeps the joy of software engineering and keeping a team motivated.

31:00 - How to approach burnout amongst members of your tech team.

36:00 - Advice for people looking to get into the industry.