Product Owner Jonah is one of our Open Banking and technical specialists in Dublin, so we spoke to him about his career so far with Fire – the challenges but also the highlights!

What does your job involve?
Hi there, my name is Jonah and I work on the product team here in Fire. In my role here, I mainly focus on designing new products and technical solutions. This ranges from Open Banking to the technical re-design of some of our systems.

What’s the most rewarding thing about working here?
I enjoy the challenge of everyday life here. Working in Fire on the product team, you get a lot of responsibility and control over the product you’re working on.

Biggest work challenge you’ve faced?
When developing a new product, there are a lot of challenges that arise throughout the journey. In order to cross the finish line, you have to be ready to adapt to new unforeseen challenges and be able to address them.

Why Fire? Why FinTech?
The Fintech industry is a fabulous industry to be in and Fire is right at the center of it. In Fire, you get direct hands on experience of what this industry is like and you play an important role in it.

Summarise the culture in 3 words?

Innovative, Driven, Collaborative

What do you do for fun?
I joined Fire in the middle of the Covid Pandemic and even still, I have had a great social experience here. Some of us hang on after work on a Friday to have a drink and catch-up. The culture here has been very inclusive and I’m glad I’m apart of it!

What’s something new you’ve tried out since lockdown
I’ve started working towards my private pilot license as becoming a pilot has been a childhood dream of mine. I’m usually in the air 1-2 times per month!

Any unusual skills, fears, or interests?
Most of my professional interests are based around technical architecture, cloud architecture in particular. I am sitting a series of AWS Solution Architecture certificates to build up my technical knowledge. The knowledge directly applies to a lot of the products and projects that I work on.

Business Analyst Cailín is part of our Dublin team. We sat down with her to find out what it’s like working at fire.com’s HQ and what brought her to the payments industry.

Hi Cailín! So, how long have you been with the company?
Almost 1.5 years.

What does your job involve?
As a Business Analyst with fire.com, I’m involved in the full project lifecycle – from researching new product concepts, generating project scope and design documents, overseeing the development of changes to planning and phasing product releases.

What do you find most rewarding about your role as Business Analyst?
It’s rewarding to be regularly releasing new and tangible changes to the fire.com platform. Whether it’s external customers impacting product changes or enhancements to our internal operational systems – the platform is constantly changing and evolving.

What is the most exciting challenge you’ve worked on yet?
The most challenging programme I’ve been involved in to date was our Brexit preparation programme. Given the uncertainty around Brexit, fire.com sought to split all activity on our platform between UK-based and EU-based activity in order to fully protect our customers whatever the outcome. The project involved updates to every area of the system from customer onboarding to Treasury functions. This was a project I worked on at the beginning of my time with fire.com, and it was a great way to get an in depth understanding of the entire platform and the many services fire.com offers.

What’s your background? Why did you want to join a company like fire.com?
I studied Information Systems in Trinity College Dublin and worked as a Technology Consultant for several years, before spending time working in the Charity sector – so quite a varied background! I’d worked with several financial institutions as a consultant and was very interested in the way technology was revolutionising the financial sector. When the opportunity came up to work in a growing fintech company like fire.com, I was very excited to have the chance to play a part in transforming the industry.

Summarise the culture in three words?
Friendly, supportive, driven.

What do you like most about working in the payments industry?
There is so much potential and change in the payments industry right now. Constantly evolving technology and exciting new legislation like PSD2 means that there are always new opportunities to take advantage of. Payments are a daily part of life, and to be involved in something that has such a wide reach is fascinating.

And how about outside of work? What do you get up to in your spare time?
Running, reading, tag rugby and walking my dog Rocco.

Do you have any unusual or quirky skills or fears?
I’m not sure if this is a skill or a weakness but I can sleep through anything. I used to sleep through deafening fire drills in my college halls of residence, much to the unease of my flatmates!

We recently sat down with Robert, Operations Analyst at fire.com, to find out what it’s like working in the Operations team and what led him to fire.com. Check out the full interview:

Hi Robert! So tell us, how long have you been with the company?
It’s hard to believe, but I’ve just passed my two-year anniversary working with fire.com.

What does your job involve?
Operations Analyst is quite a wide-ranging role in a fintech company like fire.com. When I describe it to my friends, I tell them that the role encompasses four main areas: Customer Support, Customer Onboarding, Treasury & Fraud Analysis and Prevention.

I enjoy how varied the role is. Every day brings new challenges and learnings which is great as fire.com was my first full time job after graduating from college. Being able to learn so much early on in my career is fantastic and puts me in good stead for the future.

So what do you find most rewarding about your role?
It’s certainly satisfying when you’ve successfully prevented and pre-empted fraudulent activity. I take great pride in protecting our customers and ensuring they don’t become victims.

And the most exciting challenge you’ve worked on yet?
One of the most exciting and interesting parts of my job is corporate account management. As more and more businesses are discovering the advantages of fire.com, managing and helping these companies has become a larger part of my role. Discovering how different business models work is really interesting, then problem solving as to how we can best help them is challenging but rewarding.

What’s your background? Why did you want to join a company like fire.com?
My background is actually in education and music. After studying music for a year in BIMM Dublin, I took up a BSc in Education Studies with Marino Institute of Education. Going into college I had the thought that I might one day become a music teacher, however after six years of secondary school and five years of college, I decided that a break from the education sector would be beneficial.

I heard about fire.com through a friend and loved the idea of working for tech startup, though I was conscious that my experience up until that point was unrelated. Fortunately, I had a few transferable skills and backed myself to learn fast. fire.com put their faith in me and I’m still here two years later – so I guess I’m doing something right!

How would you summarise the culture in three words?
Honest, Hardworking, Teamwork.

What do you like about working in the payments industry?
Banking and payments are something everybody has in common. Being at the forefront of the fintech sector is an exciting and a competitive space to be in. I like being able to tell my friends about the new ways in which fintech is going to benefit their everyday lives in the future.

Any hobbies and interests outside of work you’d like to share?
I love music. Guitar is my instrument of choice. If I ever won the lotto, there’s a good chance I’d spend most of the money filling my house with guitars.

Sport is another big one. I’d be happy to talk about sport all day (anybody who has sat in the canteen with me at lunch can attest!) Football would be my main obsession: watching it, playing it, listening to sport radio or podcasts and reading football writers – I’m completely addicted.