I was the team lead for a team of 10 people working on the “Hotels” section of the Opodo online offering (
www.opodo.com).
I was working on a contract basis for 6 months initially but this was extended a further 2 months at an increased rate.
Initially my role was to take over the project from the existing team lead and was responsible for the technical aspects of the
project going into production. This involved a steep learning curve of both the system and the culture of the company and
its release processes. It also involved integrating with a well-established and cohesive team and adopting the position of
technical leadership. I found it both a challenging and highly stimulating experience, which really put my previous
knowledge to the test on all fronts, from process to technical.
The project was a complex e-commerce website involving SOAP communication through an xml gateway to several third
party hotel booking systems. The technology involved secure transactions, credit card processing, xml messaging, back
end financial logging, data warehousing and content management.
We successfully completed the phase of the project on time in December 04.
Subsequently I was responsible for leading the analysis and design of the final phase of the project, which involved creating
a “mark-up” engine to allow Opodo to purchase hotel rooms at trade prices and sell them on with a given margin added.
The margin could be determined via a web interface allowing the business users to create time / location based mark-ups.
The analysis of this phase was particularly complex, allowing for many subtleties in the way in which hotel rooms are
priced. There was also a complex tax situation as the hotel rooms may be charged at different tax rates in different
countries. The website is available in multiple countries so all code was required to be internationalised. This had a major
effect on all calculations as both the currency of the traveller and that of the hotel had to be taken into account.
During this second period of my time at Opodo I brought to bear much of the knowledge I had acquired in my previous roles
in terms of OO design and methodology. Whilst the team were all fine technicians and had some familiarity with OO
procedures, few had practiced it formally. I made heavy use of UML modelling in order to communicate with the team and
keep in touch with what was happening on a technical level. I also played a strong role in directing the business analysis
into a more formalised Use Case model.
Whilst I was mostly concerned with my specific project, I was also involved generally in the company with discussions about
restructuring of process and architecture across teams, I found this very rewarding and that much of my previous
experience was relevant.
Much of my work involved making Structural, performance, security, implementation framework, build structure and code
repository decisions.
I found the experience as a whole very positive and informative and felt that my combination of deep technical awareness
and sensitivity to the team dynamics made an excellent combination. I believe my success in the role is evidenced by the
fact that my contract was extended at an increased rate.
On a personal level I found that getting to know the team and facilitating their work was very rewarding. Whilst previously
my experience was largely technical, this role allowed me the opportunity to test both my interpersonal and technical skills
in the setting of a high profile commercial website.