Dave Balderstone, Software Engineer:
"I graduated from Cardiff University in 2006, with a BSc in Computer Science. In January 2007 I interviewed with Purple and instantly realised that David, Jez and I all had a similar work ethic and supported the same engineering principles. However, circumstances at the time meant I took a position at Computershare, before working in California and Paris with Raytheon. In October 2008, David persuaded me to come back to the UK to join Purple as a Software Engineer.
"I worked with Stonewood and Detica before taking a six-month break to travel around Australia. On returning, I continued my career with Purple, where I looked at mobile application development and also spent some time on-site with Detica. Since October 2010, I've been working in-house on two software projects for the Met Office.
"My day job... can vary significantly, as Purple is a small, dynamic company. Alongside my Software Engineering role, I also look after the development and demo environments. I'm currently engineering a collection of parsers to extract data from restful web services, which will then be used to populate a domain model.
"What I enjoy the most... is working with skilled engineers to produce high-quality software components which work together to form solution systems. I appreciate the flexible and relaxed working environment at Purple and working closely with Purple's customers, as well as my colleagues in the office.
"Last year I qualified as a PRINCE 2 practitioner, and I'm interested in exploring the discipline of technical project management - which is both supported and encouraged by Purple. It's good to know that, as a Purple employee, there are a variety of different paths and disciplines that I can choose to forward my career.
"At Purple I've gained exposure to a wide range of technical and business roles through which I have become a well-rounded and educated engineer. From being thrown in at the deep-end with projects and tasks, I've learnt and progressed much quicker than my peers at much larger companies."