Rent the Runway’s Joe Hyland discusses his role in the software engineering sector and his advice for those on an upward trajectory.
Joe Hyland, a senior engineering manager at the Galway branch of Rent the Runway, has always possessed an analytical and problem-solving mindset. An early memory of when his family got their first home PC in the 90s stands out as a defining moment for him. One in which he began to explore his potential for creativity.
“It began with printing simple custom birthday cards, then progressed to GeoCities-hosted websites to list my amateur woodwork for sale with PayPal links,” Hyland told SiliconRepublic.com.
“I printed gift vouchers for a local hairdresser, created websites for local businesses…a snowball of mini projects. The dot-com bubble burst around the time I was looking at career options and making course selections.”
And while he noted that “tech did not seem like a solid choice at the time”, he continued to keep one foot in the world of technology, eventually undertaking a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in the University of Galway – followed by various educational and career opportunities that firmly embedded him in the tech space.
What educational and work experiences led you to the role you now have?
Throughout my civil engineering studies I had several personal side projects, such as launching a used equipment advert site for the Irish diving community and an android app to track and broadcast scores at local GAA matches. On completion of that course, I decided to redirect into the world of software by doing a two-year MSc in software design and development, which allowed me to bridge into a hands-on software development role.
I found my way into a graduate front-end developer role with Wood Group in Galway, working on finite element analysis software. I later joined a small internal start-up of a data analytics team. From there, my former Wood Group colleague John Quinlivan introduced me to the opportunity to step into the world of fashion rental! Over the past five years I’ve transitioned into engineering management, spending less time coding and more time leading a high-performing team that’s building the tech to support our fulfilment centres in the US.
What were the biggest surprises or challenges you encountered on your career path?
One of the biggest challenges when moving into engineering management is making a degree of separation from the delivery of code. I regularly see an incoming feature with a demanding deadline that I would love to jump in and start coding; it’s often iterations on functionality I would have originally built. In my current role I need to give the team space to deliver their solution, as my time is often better spent coordinating the strengths within the team and preparing upcoming projects for implementation so we can continually deliver as a group. Thankfully, I still indulge in some development work when capacity allows.
Was there any one person who was particularly influential as your career developed?
Coming from a civil engineering background, I was very fortunate to work closely alongside Alexey Potapov in my first graduate position at Wood PLC. Alexey, a very experienced and proficient engineer, was incredibly generous with his time and his mentorship allowed me to ramp up quickly as a developer.
What do you enjoy about your job?
In my current role, it is fascinating to build up an understanding of how each person on the team thrives and what their career development goals are and then bring all that together into a high performing cohesive team that succeeds collectively. It is rewarding to work with individuals on the team to help identify growth opportunities, then see them stretch and progress through their career paths. I also enjoy that our tech is supporting the movement and processing of physical garments. It is very rewarding to launch new or optimised tech flows and then visit the fulfilment centre to see thousands of garments passing through it.
What aspects of your personality do you feel make you suited to this job?
I think keeping calm under pressure allows me to gather all available information and opinions to make the best informed decisions at any point in time. Also I think it’s important to keep questioning existing and proposed solutions and offer up alternatives. On a professional level, I’ve always been a pragmatic problem-solver. I love the challenge of untangling a complex technical problem and leading a team to build something elegant and effective. There’s a real satisfaction in shipping code and seeing it make an impact. A significant influence on my leadership style in recent years has come from outside the office. I’m a dad to two young girls, aged three and five, and that experience has been a real-world masterclass in empathy, patience and navigating the unexpected.
How did your current company support you on your career path?
Our operations technology teams, under the leadership of our senior director Michael Liberant, are given a lot of autonomy to operate in the most effective and efficient way we see fit. That culture allowed me to tune our ways of working as the new Galway teams built out and the company embraced hybrid working. I was offered an engineering lead role to get a taste of engineering management while still contributing to code every day. Rent the Runway has a very clearly defined engineering continuum, where the expectations at each level are transparent and facilitates career progression across the broad range of technical and leadership competencies.
What advice would you give to those considering a career in this area, or just starting out in one?
Use your hobbies and interests to fuel side projects that will make your life easier, iterate quickly with you as both the end user and developer, then make it available for others. Observe and listen carefully to your users, focus on removing points of friction and not just layering on additional functionality. As you develop in your career, keep an eye on how the projects you are working on impact the bottom line for the business. Sometimes the delivery of a scrappy solution with conscious tech debt and planned follow-ups is what is needed to realise returns sooner and get feedback as early as possible. Finally, enjoy the journey.
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