What does a typical day in the life of a front-end engineer at Viasat look like? We spoke to Breffni Murdoch to learn more.
A career in user experience design (UX) can take many shapes. Whether it’s consultancy work or in-house design, there are diverse and exciting routes open to a person with the right skills.
For Breffni Murdoch, his journey has led him to the in-flight entertainment division at Viasat Ireland. He talked to Siliconrepublic.com about his work routine and what he likes most about his job.
Viasat is a global communications company with a more than 5,000 employees across 28 locations. At its Dublin office at Charlemont Place, software development is the key focus. That’s where Murdoch, a principal front-end engineer, spends his days. So, what does a typical day in this role generally involve?
“I work a lot with remote developers and feature teams in the US,” he told us. “So, I will typically open up Slack in the morning. I’ll do some code reviews, I’ll see what work went on during the night. And then I’ll grab some coffee.”
Murdoch highlighted Slack as an important tool for communicating with his international colleagues – something he’s required to do on a daily basis. Thankfully, it’s a part of the job that he enjoys.
“I really enjoy working and collaborating with the international teams,” he said.
The ‘real strong point’ of Viasat
For anyone interested in a job such as this, Murdoch outlined the key skills that are needed in his role. “From a front-end engineering perspective, we’re heavily focused on consumer-focused UX. So, we heavily lean on React and TypeScript architectures,” he said.
But there’s plenty more to this position, and other aspects of his job that Murdoch likes include getting “to drive a lot of the tech” that his team uses, and the “collection of strong, intelligent, smart people” that he works with. “The real strong point of Viasat, though, is the people,” he added.
