An Aspiring Monzonaught
Contact MeHi Monzo,
My name's Sam and I have a question for you. You've helped 3.7 million people change the way they bank but can you help me find my next job opportunity?
Sam Larsen-Disney
Design Engineer working in R&D @ American Express.
I joined American Express on their technolgy summer internship. I completed two six month rotations on their graduate scheme. I tried my hand as a Front End developer and User Experience Designer and realised that I wanted my role to be a mixture of the two.
Since then I have joined 'Refer A Friend' in a Research & Develpoment team as a Design Engineer. Here I build new products and design the future of the refer a friend scheme at American Express. The team is constantly ideating using tools such as the design sprint process and lightening decision jams, both of which I have facilitated as well as participated in.
The projects I have worked on have been incredibly varied. I have built web-ready animations, onboarding experiences, faster sites in newer frameworks, chat bots and so much more. Sadly, due to the nature of my work, I cannot share much information on these projects.
I am proficient in:
Javascript, HTML5, ReactJS, Redux, GatsbyJS, Node, CI/CD pipelines, Adobe Suite, Sketch, UX Design, Rapid Prototyping & much more.
Aside from the day job.
I have always enjoyed leading people. I was the only graduate in my cohort to formally manage interns and have gone on to be the youngest engineer to manage graduates.
When I'm not in the office I like to attend hackathons. At these events I enjoy teaching the next generation to code and have a bit of a reputation for staying up all night. I also like to take photos, write about tech and tinker with weekend coding projects.
The perfect role for me would include Product Design.
Why I ❤️ Monzo
💪 You're Small and Mighty
I have come to realise that company size isn't everything. I am attracted to the fact you are 1/40th the size of my current company. Because you're smaller you are able to make big changes fast - I'm thinking of your recent app redesign as an example.
👩🎨 Your Design
It's clear. It's bold. It's beautiful. It allows users to make sense of the jargon that comes with online banking. All while using emojis an appropriate amount!
🥽 Accessibility & Performance
One thing that my work as a design engineer has instilled in me, is the importance of performance and accessibility in modern web development. I must admit, when I performed a lighthouse audit on your webpage it was refreshing to see a sea of green pass marks. This is something I rarely come across at my current company.
🧑💻 Customer Support
I have only ever had to use your customer support once - I was accidentally charged twice by a merchant while abroad. The chat bot flow you have in your app blew my mind. I answered three questions and a minute later I had a real person confirming they had fixed the problem. It's the first time I have come out of customer support interaction with a smile on my face and it was the push I needed to finally put my salary into Monzo.