5 years at Cortex: D2's experiences

Dan Steadman joined Cortex in 2018 as a developer and has worked with Matt and Marc for over a decade. This October marks his five-year anniversary at Cortex.

In the office, Dan is affectionately known as the platform ninja. This is as much to do with his skills in popular platforms like SharePoint as it is his zen-like calm and his ability to sneak out for a cheeky haircut with nobody noticing; but also because of his mysterious quirks… well, quirk: Dan's steadfast refusal to drink any tea or coffee. He’s even got his own ninja attire (the bright yellow bike helmet kind). We decided to have a chat with him by the beer fridge and discuss his experiences working at Cortex over these past five years.

Dan has 15+ years of experience in the industry and is skilled at software development and data warehousing. He also has a deep understanding of SharePoint.

First things first: why “D2” ?!

"Ha. A few years ago, we were all involved in a large project to build a major data warehouse. There was already another Dan on the team, so when I joined the project I was Dan 2 which was ultimately shortened to D2 and it’s just stuck ever since."

Can you tell me more about what you do?

"My work is software development whether on our stuff like Seeker or on client systems. The client work ranges from developing brand new systems to supporting existing ones. For example, I help clients extend tools like SharePoint from just a document management tool to a full-service platform where they can manage business processes through the use of forms and workflow... making it smarter. I’ve done a lot with integrating other systems and by making better use of business data."

What has changed over the years?

"As one of the first employees to join Cortex, I’d say the biggest change I’ve seen is definitely the growth in the team. We’ve more than doubled in size and we’ve also grown a lot as a company. In the early days, the main focus was on establishing the business and growing the client relationships. Now, our focus has shifted more to expanding the business through the development of our own suite of software products."

What is your favourite memory at Cortex?

"The social events are good fun... we’ve hit the Herm beer festival a good few times. But the Cortexmas party (Cortex Christmas party) is always a highlight of the year. We play games around the office like pool and golf or we turn on the Nintendo Switch. We keep track of the scores for each of the games and the winner gets a 3D-printed trophy."

Wait, a 3D-printed trophy?

"We’ve always liked to tinker with stuff and strange ideas. We were experimenting with mounting a web camera on our roof, pointing at the North Beach car park, to monitor parking spaces through some machine vision stuff. We needed a part for the camera to weatherproof it and instead of ordering it online, we decided we wanted to 3D print it. Which meant we had to buy a 3D printer. And since then we’ve printed various things, including the annual Cortexmas trophy which I designed. I even won it at the first ever Cortexmas party!"

Why Cortex?

"It’s a great bunch of people and I’m doing work that I enjoy. There’s definitely an encouragement to grow your skills and everyone in the team is working on interesting projects, which is infectious! It’s a relaxed atmosphere with strong motivation to build momentum."

Are you interested in working at Cortex? We're always keen to hear from like-minded people, so if you think you might be a good fit, please get in touch via our vacancies page.