Questers has been successfully collaborating with News UK since 2018. Through the years we have attracted exceptional people and developed great team culture for their dedicated team in Bulgaria. Now the company is looking to further expand their capacity in Sofia, so we used the occasion to talk to Nainesh Mehta, Director of Engineering at News UK, who shared his impressions of the Bulgarian unit and details about the future growth plans. Read below.
Tell us a bit about yourself. What was your previous educational and professional background?
I am from New Zealand and I studied a Bachelor of Engineering specializing in Engineering Science. This discipline underpins all modern engineering practices and utilises computer models to solve issues we face in our daily lives. My first role was with a very small computer software company where I learnt and honed the craft of software development in JavaScript, HTML, CSS and ASP.Net.
In 2006, I moved to London where I worked across many different industries and sectors, furthering my software development skills and eventually moving into management of software development teams.
You are now a Director of Engineering at News UK and are closely engaged with the News UK Tech Sofia office. Can you share more about your role and what are you looking after?
In my role, I am responsible for engineering excellence across News UK and ensuring that we are delivering value to the business. I focus on building a great engineering culture, promoting personal and professional career development and ensuring that all people in the team are motivated and enjoy what they do.
Tell us more about the projects News UK Tech is currently working on. Which are the most challenging ones?
News UK is the home of some of the most recognised news publications in the world. The Sun, in particular, is the most read digital publication in the UK. We are continually challenged to provide a platform that can withstand varying degrees of web traffic when important world events happen.
This means that we focus on building high-performing systems and efficient caching mechanisms, leveraging cloud technology and the various tech partners that we work with.
As a multi-brand business and at the scale that we work, data processing and management are extremely challenging. We collect various data sets from all our products and process this at scale to make day-to-day decisions for the business. Creating a supporting pipeline and architecture to support this is a challenge we continue to solve.
You are closely engaged with the office in Bulgaria and have visited us several times – what are your impressions from Sofia, and how would you describe the Bulgarian team?
I love coming to Sofia, experiencing the culture and meeting the people here. We have an extremely diverse team with colleagues from all parts of Bulgaria. Everyone is very talented, motivated and passionate about their craft. This passion shines through in their work and their achievements, both personal and professional.
Would you share how has Questers supported News UK’s growth in Sofia?
From sourcing top talent across Bulgaria to helping build an amazing culture within our teams, Questers have been valuable partner to News UK. They continue to provide the right level of support that News UK requires in order to scale and continue to build amazing products.
Would you be able to shed some light on News UK’s future plans for Bulgarian operations?
Heading into the future, we will continue to invest in our existing talent base whilst recruiting and growing our presence in Bulgaria in order to support the growing needs of a business that is moving fast into the digital age.
Interested in joining this growing team of talented engineers? Make sure to browse the vacancies here.