Employee Spotlight: Ryan Missett

This month, we chatted to our new Head of Platform, Ryan Missett. We discussed his first few months in the role, learning French, and his love of Mad Men. We hope you enjoy it!

Tell us about your new role at Cloud Gateway. How long have you been with the company and what does a typical day look like for you?

I joined Cloud Gateway in March 2022, so I’ve been here about 18 months now. The time has flown by! I started as a Lead Engineer and was initially responsible for all the automation as part of an internal project called Netscape. After that, we restructured the team slightly and I took on a new role as Head of Platform, which has been absolutely amazing so far. I am really enjoying the extra responsibilities that come with the job

It’s a little cliche, but my days are all really different. The biggest part of the role is coordinating the team’s efforts and ensuring they’re aligned to the customer feedback we’re getting via the Sales and Service teams. We set ourselves really high standards when it comes to the quality of the systems we’re building, so it's my job to make sure we consistently meet and exceed those expectations. Luckily, we have a really talented and capable group of people in the Platform team, which definitely makes my life a little easier. 

It is really important to me (and the team) that everything we do is adding value to the customer and enhancing their experience working with Cloud Gateway. We try not to lose sight of that when making important decisions around the direction we’re going to take the platform in. 

For this reason, I spend a lot of time working with internal and external stakeholders to understand how we can re-engineer an aspect of the platform to optimise its performance and deliver a better service to our users. Then comes the fun bit of designing and drawing up a solution that will enable the outcome we’re looking for.

What is the Netscape project? Can you tell us a little more about it?

Of course. The Netscape project was designed to automate a whole raft of internal processes with the aim of reducing the time needed to build and deploy the platform. We pride ourselves on our ability to onboard customers much faster than our competitors, so it is important to continually review and update the processes that enable that.

By doing this, we were not only able to deliver a slicker experience for the customer, but also free-up vital resources that have allowed us to accelerate our development roadmap. We’re always looking for smarter ways to do things, and this is a good example of that. 

What is the most enjoyable or rewarding part of your role?

For me, the most enjoyable part of the job is guiding people through learning something new, and then seeing how they apply that new knowledge to the project we’re working on. In my experience, no one goes into a project knowing everything they need to know, so working through these blind spots with people and helping them figure out how to build something new is always really rewarding.

Have you always worked in Tech?

Aside from a lot of very brief stints at various call centres and now-defunct high street shops as a teenager, I’ve always worked in Tech.

How do you like to spend your time out of work?

I’m a keen exercise enthusiast. I’m usually out-and-about five days a week, spending two or three days doing Thai boxing and the rest in the gym. It’s good stress relief and helps me to unwind after a long day. Plus, I can then spend a lot of time at the weekend doing whatever I want without feeling too guilty! 

I’ve recently started evening French lessons too since my girlfriend is from French-speaking Belgium. I’d love to be able to know what her family is saying about me when we go for a visit this Christmas! It’s totally different from anything I’d normally spend my time doing, and it feels like it’s working out some parts of my brain that don’t get used too often, which is always a nice feeling. 

I was also a bit of a TV and film buff at one point, but that has sadly had to fall by the wayside as life tends to get in the way of three hour stints on the sofa!

What are your favourite films and TV series then?

Definitely Mad Men. I love it because it covers so much!

It shows a time in history that a lot of people have this odd, out-sized nostalgia for, because it was supposed to be the last time things were actually 'stable', and shows that things were maybe never less stable than in the 60s and 70s. It shows a man trying to navigate his way through a time in history where class systems were crumbling, civil rights were taking shape, and gender/sexual equality was really becoming 'a thing'. He starts the show thinking that these things are all ridiculous and probably ends the show without changing that much, but the show goes out of its way to show him being damaged by all these problems, even if he thinks he doesn't need to care about them. For a show set in the 60s, it's still super relevant.

What is one word that sums you up best?

Cromulent.

Great word! Thank you for chatting with us.