What My Working Day Looks Like

"As Technical Director my working day can vary tremendously, on a good day:"

Rob Swan
Technical Director

Firstly, I drink some coffee.

The day kicks off touching base with rest of the Sonder team to check everyone is okay and ready for the day ahead. We share a lot of tasks so keeping in close touch with the rest of the 'office' is key to keeping things running efficiently.

Most days I tend to have at least one meeting or phone call with an existing client to try and help them solve a technical problem, this generally involves:

Discussing a potential solution we might be able to offer for a problem they’re having
Providing support for something they’re already using
Shaping the direction of something we’re already developing

I then drink some more coffee.

I typically have some server maintenance to attend to; checking logs and alerts to ensure there’s no impending problems with either disk usage or bandwidth or anything else.

Our whole system is pretty robust because we're constantly checking for anything that needs maintenance. A reliable server is key to providing website services.

More coffee follows.

I then tend to get my head into some developing. Coding is a bit like writing, you have to be in the right mindset to get into the flow of it. I’ve got a constant list of exciting new features we’re adding to Envelope to work through as well as a constant supply of tweaks and amends to existing ones.

We're always keen to improve the system, but as the constant march of progress is so strong online I'm always editing and improving the features that we already have. This is the easiest portion of my day to overrun.

Then there’s some lunch, sometimes a dog walk. Trying to clear the development work from my head can be tough, a bit of fresh air can do wonders. This also happens to be the time of day when we get the most calls!

After lunch these days I tend to then attend a client briefing of some description, delivering reports and updates to a client on the current state of play for their project and overall marketing strategy.

COFFEE.

It’s quite likely I’ll then take a sales call or two to speak to potential new customers. We've improved our website considerably this year, and that exposure combined with a heap of word of mouth recommendations from our existing clients means we're always getting new leads to talk through what we do.

We're pretty selective, we pride ourselves on only working with clients who fit with our ethos that we believe we can make a real difference to.

YET MORE COFFEE.

I do quite a lot of approving and signing-off on content and websites, as well as helping with more technical elements of the build.

I also have a mountain of emails to wade through each day which need replies, or filtering off to other people, or actioning.

And that tends to be my day!

Other Relevant Resources

There's always more to learn, we recommend these blogs:

Why I Joined Sonder

10 Reasons to Work with Sonder Digital

The Responsibility of Agency Work

The New Normal - Marketing During COVID-19

Back to All Resources

Posted by Rob Swan on January 4th 2021

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