Taking dxw to the North
After two years as a civil servant, I have now joined the dxw team. In some ways it was a hard choice – I had committed myself to help change the way that government does technology and leaving felt like giving up on the wonderful colleagues that I left to carry on that mission.
But in other ways, it was a simple choice. dxw’s mission “to help public sector teams make good technology decisions and build better services” had been my mantra as a civil servant anyway. And the promise of working at dxw as “like being a civil servant, but without the nonsense” was just too much to resist.
My role as Head of Northern Operations might need some explaining. It consists of three things:
- find and set up a place for dxw to work from in the North
- find some clients to work with
- find some talented people to help do the work
Simple then.
We’re already halfway there with an office, with pen poised over a contract on 1600 square feet of iconic real estate in the heart of Leeds. We can’t say exactly where until that contract is signed, but it is an exciting move and will last us at least a couple of years.
Finding clients to work with is already underway, with some great projects on the horizon (or even nearer). We all know how important it is for digital teams to work in close collaboration with service teams, and being based in Leeds will make that so much easier for the huge public sector organisation in the north to get the benefit of that.
Finding talent is always hard, but talent attracts talent and dxw have been very successful in building a talented team so far. We are currently putting together the job descriptions for our next round of northern recruits (we already have some team members ready to move in when the office opens). But if you can’t wait, please contact me on twitter (or mastodon) and we’ll have a chat over a nice cup of tea.