The experts behind FanDuel and their top advice for a career in tech

Written by Neil Henderson, Product Design Director

Stay humble, stay hungry.

Sounds like a powerful mantra, but what does it actually mean to us at FanDuel?

As one of our key principles, we believe that learning never stops. Regardless of whether you are the coach or the athlete, at the start of your career or flying high and climbing up through the ranks.

Ultimately, there is always room to grow the range of your expertise and discover even more.

With new technologies and approaches to the way we work constantly shifting and emerging, our main priority is the continuous development of our key strength, our people.

We want to inspire each member of our team to remain curious, intrigued and excited to expand their knowledge and this applies across both their professional and personal lives. It includes encouraging them to highlight any hobbies and interests they may have outside work, bringing their unique and expert insight into project briefings and brainstorms.

This is especially important within the world of design, where it shouldn’t be a sole person’s responsibility to come up with all the ideas and flesh them out.

Having always worked in design, coming from an agency background into the vast community of FanDuel, the key thing that has helped me grow my expertise is surrounding myself with a close network of both colleagues and friends. This bubble of contacts, some going back to university, has been incredibly helpful to have whenever I need to sense check an idea.

Not only does it give me a chance to bounce off someone else and pull from their experience, but an idea can be challenged and scrutinised in a timely manner, either thrown out or built upon. If fleshed out in further detail (with internal workshops and sketching sessions always within the early stages) an idea can be developed in a way that is more feasible to the market. This collaborative approach benefits the whole team by providing an opportunity for our people to learn something new from each other.

For those taking their first steps into the industry, my top tips would be:

1. Separate yourself from your work:

Recognise that feedback is directed at your work and not you as a person. Learn to let go and leave an idea behind, without taking criticism to heart — sometimes even good ideas don’t always work in every context.

2. Make time for self-learning:

If there is something you are particularly interested in or enjoy, find out more about it, even if it is not specifically work related. Knowledge can be taken from all places which is why we at FanDuel offer 10% time. This specific time during the working week allows our people to build in and take time to develop their expertise on a new tech skill, catch up on blog posts or join a webinar.

3. Being present and in attendance:

Having face to face time with your colleagues and being in a space where you can all work together, helps develop your network. Creating this trusted pool of people, allows you to gain instant feedback which is why we are continuing to provide flexible spaces and facilities including our first UK Hub in Edinburgh and new Glasgow location inside Clockwise.

You can learn more about our team opportunities here: https://www.fanduel.co.uk/

The experts behind FanDuel and their top advice for a career in tech was originally published in FanDuel Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.