Rowan Findlay, Lead Frontend Engineer at SquareKicker

From dreaming of painting planes, to thinking that something to do with computers was the most likely path, Rowan Findlay, Lead Frontend Engineer at SquareKicker sounds like he has ended up exactly where he wanted to be.

We caught up with Rowan to learn more about how he ended up building software products, what a typical day in the life looks like and what he loves about his current role with SquareKicker.

Thanks for sharing your story, Rowan.

How would you explain to a five-year-old what you do for work?

I help to design and build the things you play with on screens.

And for the adults, what does a typical day in the life look like?

Waking up with a refreshing ride to work on my DIY Frankenstein e-bike. Hanging out and building innovative software products with a bunch of intelligent, creative, caring and generally awesome humans. I'd say my days are spent in equal parts planning the nuances of good product design and head down implementing code.

What did you dream of doing when you were young?

Painting planes... don't ask, I was 5. Kids do say the darnest things. As a teenager, however, "something to do with computers" was all I knew for sure.

What do you love about your job?

I love creating things that allow others to create more things.

Tell us a little bit more about your career pathway and how you got into your current role?

I grew up playing with Lego technic, modding Xbox consoles, building my own computers and playing a lot of games. More hardware then software, but got into building website templates and teaching myself to code HTML, CSS and vanilla Javascript in my 20's.

Are there any key traits or characteristics of people that do well in software engineering?

Creativity, curiosity, flexibility, collaboration, communication and a sense of humor.