Agilio Value Award Winner Interview Series
Cheryl Hanlon, Lead Developer – CTO Team
Impact on the Wider Community Award Winner
In light of our recent Agilio Value Awards, we sat down with the winners to chat about their awards, their roles, and what it’s like to work at Agilio. Here we speak with Cheryl Hanlon, Lead Developer in the CTO Team and winner of the Impact on the Wider Community Value Award.
Cheryl is regarded as very community minded by her team; she was integral in raising awareness and encouraging colleagues to register for stem cell donations and is one of Agilio’s Culture Club – a group of staff volunteers working together to make the company a great place to work. Renowned for her Friday pub quizzes, even on annual leave, Cheryl is known for keeping the team connected with a variety of social events while never losing sight of important initiatives.
Could you tell us a little bit about your role, what it entails and what your favourite part of the job is.
I am a Principal Software Engineer. My role is to help build the suite of products that Agilio offers to our customers. My main focus is designing software systems that are scalable, robust, secure and efficient, which includes making decisions about the architecture, selecting appropriate technologies and tools, and defining and adhering to best practices and coding standards.
While it may not initially seem obvious, Software Development can be quite a creative process. It’s like being presented with a giant jigsaw puzzle, and it’s your job to make all the pieces fit together nicely. My favourite, and definitely most satisfying, part of the role is when you are stuck on a problem for a little while, and then you get that sudden flash of inspiration and find the perfect, neat, simple and elegant solution.
Other than winning your value award, what is your proudest achievement at Agilio?
There are many things that make me proud daily, from seeing our team of junior developers improving from week to week to the quality of the software packages we release. However, one thing that jumps to mind that I am particularly proud of was the project that I led for the Clarity Appraisal solution in response to the Covid outbreak.
Doctors are required to submit a formal appraisal each year. During the Covid outbreak, we were made aware that the General Medical Council (GMC) was planning to announce a lighter touch appraisal template; however, the detail had not been finalised. The team immediately sprang into action and began analysing our systems to determine how we could streamline the process and prepare for the new requirements as quickly as possible.
While waiting for the official template from the GMC, we took a proactive approach and built much of the infrastructure needed to support multiple templates. This allowed us to hit the ground running once the final requirements were announced. Our efforts paid off when we were able to release the new solution within hours of the official GMC announcement. I’d like to think that during an extremely difficult time for our doctors, we helped to make their lives easier in some small way.
What are your hopes for Agilio in the future?
For Agilio as a whole, I hope that we continue to support our healthcare professionals to the best of our ability. Whether it’s helping them learn new skills with our eLearning platforms, collating their appraisal evidence with our Clarity suite or collaborating with their practices using TeamNet, I’d like to think Agilio will be there to make these tasks a little easier.
My hope for the Engineering team specifically is that we continue to improve, grow, innovate and excel as efficiently as I know we can.
Thank you for your time, Cheryl. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Just that winning this award is really, really lovely feedback and having been recognised for bringing our teams closer together is especially nice.