We’ve always known that most Red Gate employees have a hidden talent or two, and Sarah Grady, our Media and Events Coordinator, is no exception. Having competed at the Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) Paralympic Games as part of the GB Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team, Sarah is currently training for London 2012. Red@Work caught up with her last week to find out how things are coming along.

How is your training going so far?

Sarah: It’s going well, although it’s a fairly packed schedule. On Monday nights I train in Aylesbury, and on Tuesday afternoons in Essex. Wednesday training is going to be in the Cambridge area, although I’m not sure where yet. On Thursdays I have to be in Haverhill for 6am training, and Friday afternoons tend to either be in the local area or in Stanmore. On Saturdays we have a game or training, and Sundays are either a game day or a rest day. We also have weekend training camps from time to time, which begin on a Friday night and end the following Sunday afternoon.

That sounds like a rigorous schedule! What are the best things about getting back into the game?

Sarah: I love training! People think I’m weird for enjoying it so much. I was worried about going back, but since I’ve been training properly again I feel better, fitter, happier – it’s fantastic! I also love the team aspect. It gives you a real sense of belonging somewhere, and makes you want to do well for the other people on the team, not just for yourself.

And what’s the hardest part?

Sarah: I hate all the driving. Aylesbury takes an hour and 40 minutes to get to, and I had to drive there and back twice last week. My biggest expense right now is diesel.

I’ve also been having some shoulder pain recently, which is something that began in Athens, but I didn’t really do anything about it at the time. I’m currently having some physio for the shoulder to make sure that it doesn’t become a bigger problem, and I’m trying not to push it too hard.

Are you glad that the games are in London, or would you rather have the chance to travel somewhere different?

Sarah: We’re going to be doing quite a lot of travelling anyway – our coach wants us to train in other countries as much as possible before next summer. All the international teams want to train over here to get an idea of the climate, but we’re trying to play them in their home countries as much as we can to keep them from acclimatising too well to the conditions in London. We’re either going to Canada and America or to Australia in June and July next year, and we’re going to go to as many overseas tournaments as we possibly can in the run-up to the summer.

I’m really glad the Paralympics are going to be here, though; it’ll be fantastic to play in front of a home crowd. Also, I’m a bit of a home bird – I much prefer being at home to going away. My son will be able to come and watch our matches, and it will be a lot less difficult for my parents to come and watch as well. London is much easier for them to get to than Sydney was.

Above all, it’s going to be great for us to play on home ground. One of my best memories from Sydney was when we played the Australian team. There was a fantastic vibe, with 18,000 people screaming for the home team. It’ll be amazing for us to get that kind of reception.

Do you suffer from pre-game nerves?

Sarah: Definitely. But I take it in and try to use it in the game. No one can prepare us for the feeling of going out in front of a home crowd. I try to suck the nerves in and then spit them out on court – and try not to throw up! It helps if I listen to music before a game, as well, and if I sit quietly and try to ignore everyone else, and to ignore my fears.

What’s the age range of the women’s team?

Sarah: Our youngest player at the moment is 16. I think the youngest ever was Ann Wild, who was 14 when she competed at the Seoul games in 1988. I was the first player that I know of to go to two Paralympics by the time I was 20.

How did you get into wheelchair basketball?

Sarah: I started playing when I was 13, and got into the GB squad when I was 15. I went to the National Junior Games at Stoke Mandeville when I was 13 and tried a lot of different sports there, but I knew that basketball was the one for me as soon as I started playing – I couldn’t hit the baskets, but I loved it! My mum found Force, a women’s team based in Hounslow, and put me down to go to one of their training sessions. I didn’t want to go at first – I cried! – but I’m really glad that I did go, as I wouldn’t be playing now if I hadn’t and I wouldn’t have met such amazing people either. I stayed with Force until earlier this year, when I had to switch teams - the women’s coach wants me to be on the same team as the rest of the GB women so that I’m getting the same coaching, week in week out, that I will be getting at GB training events.

I went to a GB tryout the year after I started playing. The coach told me I needed to work on everything; I thought he meant that I was rubbish, when really he just meant that I needed to work on everything! I ended up going back to another tryout a year later – I didn’t want to go back under that coach, but he rang me a week before the camp saying he hoped he’d see me there. The second tryout camp was a lot better, and I got into the GB squad in February 2000. My first tournament was in April 2000, over the week of my 16th birthday. I don’t remember much about it, apart from getting fouled out in my first international game. They baked me a huge birthday cake, and I ended up having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the entire week! I was selected for Sydney in June 2000, and, as the youngest member of the team, ended up sharing a room with the eldest!

Do you find it difficult to make time for your family around your training regime and working part time?

Sarah: I’m actually seeing more of my family than I used to when I was working full time. My sister-in-law looks after my son for me; Josh loves staying at her house, and it’s great for me because I don’t have to worry about him. I think he’s a bit young to understand what it means for me to be playing with the GB team, but I’m hoping it’ll click more when he comes to watch me play at a tournament for the first time. He’s really used to me going off to training all the time, though. I’m glad that I’m doing this now that he’s a bit older and can understand more of what’s going on. The only downside is that I don’t get to see a lot of my husband at the moment due to his shift work. Everything is pretty hectic at the moment as I’m training all over the place, and at times I feel a bit like a headless chicken!

If you’d like to help Sarah get to the London Paralympic Games 2012, or would like to hear more about her training, you can donate here and keep up with her blog as she trains towards next summer.

How did you come to be in your current role at Red Gate?

I got into testing in my first job after university, at a blue chip company in Hertfordshire – I took a 'summer job' as an auditor running scripts to test photocopiers, whilst applying for positions as a developer.  Part way through the summer I got involved with writing the test scripts I was running. This soon led on to other test related projects and as I was enjoying myself so much breaking software, rather than building it, I decided to focus on testing rather than development.

I’ve been at Red Gate for seven years – I originally joined Red Gate because I wanted a new challenge and I was really interested in the products the company had. Back then Red Gate was a small start-up and it has changed a lot in the time I have been here! I've worked in many areas of the business, including working on SQL Compare and SQL Backup Pro, and I am also now Red Gate's Head of Test.

What are the key skills and qualities you need to be a good test engineer?

You need a natural curiosity about technology and a deep-founded desire to work out how things are built and how they work within their environments. You also need to be extremely detail-orientated to spot the errors and unusual behaviours that lead to you uncovering more serious problems.

The testers at Red Gate are all also domain experts; the testers working with the database administration tools, for example, are as well versed in the internal workings of SQL Server as experienced DBAs, most have a Microsoft certification or two under their belts too.  Clearly understanding the environment within which the software you are testing operates is crucial as it allows you to create appropriate test cases and test data.  However, it also allows you look at the software through your users eyes, truly understand the problem the product is trying to solve and guide the development of the product in a way that will best suit the end users.  

Tell us a bit about the product you are currently working on

SQL Backup Pro is a mature product now, but is still evolving.  We are currently discussing the next version of the product, I cannot really say too much at the moment, but it is an exciting time; deciding what features we are going to include, how they are going to work and how we are going to test them.  This is one of the great things about working at Red Gate - you aren't a small cog in a big machine, you can see the effects of your ideas and decisions in the products you work on and release.

Describe a typical day for a Red Gate test engineer

There's no 'average day' here, as testers are involved throughout the software development process from planning, to implementation and then post release support.  There is lots of variety in test work!  

A day could involve a morning of designing and planning the next version of a product- ensuring the specifications are clear, that there is a strategy for testing the product and most importantly what product will what the user requires.

Then the afternoon might then involve manually testing a new feature that a developer has just implemented – creating and running test cases to ensure the feature work correctly, raising bugs when it doesn't and ensuring test cases for these bugs are incorporated into an automated test system so they will never occur again

One of the larger challenges I have with day-to-day work is that some of the development team are based off-site in different time zones, which can make communication tricky.

What's different about working with DBAs?

During my time in the software industry I've worked with database developers, exchange admins and database administrators. Database administrators are responsible for looking after other people's information and therefore are extremely concerned about the security of their data, the stability of their systems and maintaining their disaster recovery processes – they are therefore understandably risk averse and need to have confidence that anything they install is proven and can be trusted not to compromise these areas. This means the sales cycle for database administration tools seems to be longer.

The other big thing about working with SQL Server DBA's is the fact that there seem to be as many different hardware configurations as there are individuals in the DBA role!  There are so many options for SQL Server – SAN vs no SAN, different security settings, virtualisation...all are equally valid. This makes testing more interesting as we need to allow for these different permutations when we test. The difference, for example, between the needs of a DBA in a large, blue chip organisation with 200+ servers and someone in a start-up running everything from one machine is staggering.

If there was one question you could ask DBAs, what would it be?

As mentioned in the previous question, DBAs work with such a variety of different environments and it would be great to collect more information about what is out there. I'd like to ask DBAs reading this to give us feedback about the configuration of their SQL Server environments in the comments below!

What's the best thing about your role?

The best thing is the ability to constantly learn and develop new skills, and the great people I get to work with every day at Red Gate – it's a really friendly place to work.

And finally, tell us a bit about yourself outside Red Gate.

Outside Red Gate, I am ridiculously keen on both photography and lego, and actually combined the two in a 365 project, Lego Tales, recently (you can see Jonathan’s project, Lego Tales, here).

Red Gate attended the Technology Ventures Conference (TVC), held at the Cambridge Student Union on the 8^th June, and we had a great day.  The TVC is an event to showcase start-ups in the local area and to allow them to pitch for funding in the style of Dragon’s Den.  Red Gate are one of the event sponsors as we think it’s a great idea to do more for start-ups to help them ,and the technology industry in general, to grow and evolve.  This year’s was the biggest they have ever had, and for an event organised by the students themselves it was really quite impressive!

We got there early in the morning to set up our stand and have some breakfast whilst mingling with the organisers and other attendees (croissants and coffee in a marquee on the lawn – very civilised!).  During the day some very interesting talks were given by a range of people, I would recommend having a look at them on the CUTEC website. We spoke to a number of people during the day who were in the process of, or already had, started their own business which was great Red Gate originated in our CEO Neil’s bedroom, so start-ups are close to our heart! Neil was on the panel for the Dragon’s Den style pitches, for which a prize of £3k had been donated by us for the winning start-up.  Here is a picture of our stand – for some reason I was stroking my colleague’s nose – is that creepy?

Let us know on our Twitter account – @RedgateCareers.

The day was very informative with some fantastic ideas and participants (Virgin Galactic, you blow my mind) and we got to speak to heaps of people and tell them what we are all about, and even better, why we are an awesome place to work.  While I am on the subject, look out for the next blog from @RedgateCareers and I will tell you all about our big work day out!  Don’t worry if you don’t work here yet, though – we have a number of vacancies so have a look at our website and you never know, maybe you could be coming with us to the next fun event...

Post by: Laura O'Sullivan

Mr Reg Gater works at one of Cambridge’s many high-tech companies. He doesn’t love his job, but he puts up with it because... well, it could be worse. Every day he drives to work around the Red Gate roundabout, wondering what his boss is going to blame him for today, and wondering if there could be a better job out there for him.

By late morning he already feels like handing his notice in. He got the hacky look from his boss for being 5 minutes late, and then they ran out of tea. Again. He goes to the local sandwich shop for lunch, and picks up a Red Gate job menu and a Book of Red Gate while he’s waiting for his order. That night, he goes along to Cambridge Geek Nights and sees some very enthusiastic Red Gaters talking about the work they do; it sounds interesting and, of all things, fun. He takes a quick look at the job vacancies on the Red Gate website, and an hour later realises he’s still there – looking at videos, photos and people profiles. He especially likes the Red Gate’s Got Talent page, and is very impressed with Simon Johnson’s marathon time. He thinks that he’d quite like to work with such awesome people.

It just so happens that Red Gate recently decided that they wanted to hire another hot shot team member. Behind the scenes, the wheels were set in motion: the recruitment team met with the hiring manager to understand exactly what they’re looking for, and to decide what interview tests to do, who will do the interviews, and to kick-start any interview training those people might need. Next up, a job description and job advert were written, and the job was put on the market.

Reg applies, and his CV lands in the Recruitment team’s inbox and they open it up with eager anticipation that Reg could be the next awesome new starter. He looks good, and in a jiffy they’ve arranged an interview. Reg arrives for his interview, and is greeted by a smiley receptionist. She offers him a selection of drinks and he feels instantly relaxed. A couple of interviews and an assessment later, he gets a job offer. We make his day and he makes ours by accepting, and becoming one of the 60 new starters so far this year.

Behind the scenes, things start moving all over again. The HR team arranges for a “Welcome” goodie box to be whisked out to him, prepares his contract, sends an email to Information Services (Or IS for short - we’ll come back to them), keeps in touch with Reg to make sure he knows what to expect on his first day, and of course asks him to fill in the all-important wiki questionnaire so his new colleagues can start to get to know him before he even joins.

Meanwhile, the IS team see an email in SupportWorks from HR. They see that Reg will be starting in the sales team in a few days’ time, and they know exactly what to do. They pull out a new machine, and within minutes have used their automated deployment software to install every piece of software that a new recruit could ever need. They also check with Reg’s new manager to see if he has any special requirements that they could help with.

Reg starts and is amazed to find a fully configured machine sitting on his desk, complete with stationery and all the other tools he’ll need to do his job. He feels even more cared for after he gets a workstation assessment, and realises he’d be comfier with an ergonomic keyboard and a footstool. They arrive minutes later, just like that. His manager starts him off on his induction and sales training. Along with job-specific training, he’ll also have a buddy to help him find his feet, and loads of pre-arranged demos and introductions.

Reg settles in nicely, and is great at his job. He enjoys the canteen, and regularly eats one of the 40,000 meals provided each year. He gets used to the selection of teas that are available, develops a taste for champagne launch parties, and has his fair share of the 25,000 cups of coffee downed at Red Gate towers each year.

He goes along to some Feel Good Fund events, and donates a little something to charity in exchange for a turn on the chocolate fountain. He’s looking a little scruffy, so he decides to get his hair cut in between meetings, just in time for the Red Gate birthday company photo.

Reg starts a new project: identifying existing customers to up-sell to new bundles. He talks with the web team to generate lists of qualifying customers who haven’t recently been sent marketing emails, and sends emails out, using a new in-house developed tool to schedule follow-up calls in CRM for the same group. The customer responds, saying they’d like to upgrade but are having a licensing problem – Reg sends the issue to Support, and it gets routed to the web team. The team identifies a workaround, and the bug gets scheduled into the next maintenance release in a fortnight’s time (hey; they got lucky).

With all the new stuff Reg is working on, he realises that he’d be way more efficient if he had a third monitor. He speaks to IS and they get him one - no argument. He also needs a test machine and then some extra memory. Done. He then thinks he needs an iPad, and goes to ask for one. He gets told to stop pushing his luck.

Some time later, Reg’s wife has a baby, so Reg gets 2 weeks of paid paternity leave and a bunch of flowers sent to his house. He signs up to the childcare scheme so that he doesn’t have to pay National Insurance on the first £243 of his childcare. The accounts team makes it all happen seamlessly, as they did with his Give As You Earn payments, which come out of his wages and go straight to his favorite charity.

Reg’s sales career is going well. He’s grateful for the help that he gets from the product support team. How do they answer all those 900-ish support calls so effortlessly each month? He’s impressed with the patches that are sent out to customers who find “interesting behavior” in their tools, and to the customers who just must have that new feature.

A little later in his career at Red Gate, Reg decides that he’d like to learn about management. He goes on some management training specially customised for Red Gate, joins the Management Book Club, and gets together with other new managers to brainstorm how to get the most out of one to one meetings with his team.

Reg decides to go for a game of Foosball to celebrate his good fortune with his team, and has to wait for Finance to finish. While he’s waiting, he reflects on the wonderful time he’s had at Red Gate. He can’t put his finger on what it is exactly, but he knows he’s on to a good thing.

All of the stuff that happened to Reg didn’t just happen magically. We’ve got teams of people working relentlessly behind the scenes to make sure that everyone here is comfortable, safe, well fed and caffeinated to the max.

Another year flies by and Red Gate reaches the grand old age of 11. Here’s what we got up to on our big day:

1. At the crack of dawn we decorated the office. Cara on Reception was then wished a happy birthday by visitors to Red Gate towers for the rest of the day – a nice added bonus.



2. In the morning Chris our resident chef made us a cake. A huge one. Well, there are almost 200 of us these days.



3. At lunchtime we wracked our brains in the 1999 general knowledge quiz. Congratulations to Liam from the DBA team who won a bottle of Moet in a tense tie breaker challenge with Linda from Product Support. Who knew that the world record for hula hooping was only 83 hoops?



4. After lunch we sneaked rows of goodie bags into the SQL Servery (in more or less) alphabetical order.



5. Meanwhile, plans were being laid for our annual company photo by Dom, our awesome photographer who bravely balanced his camera over the top of our balcony.



6. We lined up to spell out “Red Gate” in our office lobby. A bit of a tight squeeze but we pulled it off.



7. No Red Gate celebration is complete without a champagne toast, so it was over to Simon to say a few words.



8. Then we opened our goodie bags. Presents!



9. A personalised t-shirt for everyone in, you’ve guessed it, red.



10. Finally we polished off the cake and champagne.



11. Later that night Dom unveiled a surprise video of our photoshoot.

Another great day at Red Gate. Here’s to another great year!

I think it was the moment when, 1500 metres above the fields of South Cambridge, sitting in the front cockpit of a yellow 1939 Tiger moth biplane in a flying jacket and goggles, the voice of the pilot came through my headphones to tell me "You now have control of the aircraft" that I thought to myself... "You know, Red Gate is a pretty cool place to work...."

It was Tuesday afternoon, about 3.15pm.

"I have control" I replied. I slowly moved the joystick between my knees to the right, and the plane banked alarmingly, the horizon tipping over like a drunk, to show the M11 motorway now parallel with my wing tip. I pulled back and to the left, and levelled the plane once more, propellers whirring away in front of me, only to be buffeted by a sudden gust of wind; the plane lurched a few feet downwards. "Nothing to worry about," the pilot reassured me. "Keep her nice and steady."

And so on I flew, in a vast, empty, sunny sky, above the colourful checkerboard fields and tiny houses clumped together, grinning from ear to ear.....

Now this is the life. Literally, the high life. A weekday afternoon, and I'm out with the rest of Red Gate's DBA Tools division at Duxford airfield, on a "Classic Wings" team activity day. When I first heard about the "Classic Wings" day, I dusted down my "Band on the run", "Live & Let Die" and "Jet" singles... but it turned out that - unlike our day out last year, when we had a session being taught how to bash plastic drums together like Stomp- this one was nothing to do with music.

27 of us arrived at Duxford airfield for our briefing, in a decommissioned control tower, at 10am. After coffee and biscuits, the guy from Classic Wings (no, it wasn't Paul McCartney) introduced himself and divided us into three groups..... a few minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a military truck with a dozen of my colleagues, feeling like I was part of a crack brigade on a secret mission in a cheesy action movie. We trundled along to a far corner of the airfield, and leapt from the back of our truck (actually that's a lie -those military trucks are really high above the ground; we descended gingerly using a rope and a ladder!) to do our first activity.

While half of our number headed off to drive some kind of continuous-tracked military vehicle over what looked like a giant BMX course (at least I think that's what they were doing; it was hard to see anything other than a giant moving cloud of dust), I picked up a laser-enabled shotgun to shoot some disks. Well, it would be more accurate to say "shoot at" or "aim generally in the direction of" said disks, as I didn't hit all that many. The light on the gun flashes red, and the giant scoreboard reveals your failure to the world as a massive zero when you miss. Laser shotguns are surprisingly good fun, though, as well as being surprisingly heavy. I've previously had a go at real clay pigeon shooting, and it's disconcerting to be able to rest the gun on your foot or point it threateningly at your mates without the instructor forcibly removing it from you and calling the cops.

After playing every variation of laser clay pigeon shooting that was available, and enjoying them all immensely (especially the game where only the fastest five hits score points, in descending order), we regrouped back in the truck - now more like a military sauna on wheels - and drove back to our cars.

Lunch break. A sumptuous two course meal at a very fine foodie pub in the village of Duxford.

"Can I just remind those of you flying this afternoon.... you're not supposed to drink any alcohol" piped up Jenny, rather too late, given the number of half-filled pints of bitter that were lined up on the table. It turned out that there is no breathalyser test before flying a vintage plane, so we were OK.

Two hours, some fish and chips and a strawberry bakewell later, it was my turn to clamber into the biplane. Walking out to my ride, I could hear the music from Top Gun in my head....

Just like Maverick, I met a lot of my new colleagues that day. And got to know some of the older ones a lot better. There's definitely something about messing about in old planes, and bumping around a dirt track in an army vehicle that brings out the best in people, and encourages them to get along. I finished off the day gawping in boggle-eyed wonder at the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in the American hangar of the air museum. Wow, I thought, what an amazing place....

And that's where we're having our Xmas party this year.

Sometimes, I feel a bit guilty working for Red Gate. When my friends all roll their eyes at having to listen to what we get up to, part of me thinks - yeah, I am lucky. And another part thinks - all companies should be like this. Unlike the Polaris missile they have at Duxford, it isn't rocket science.

Post By: Brian Harris

There is a lot of hard work goes on in Red Gate, no doubt. And then there are things we're asked to get involved with, that aren't hard and don't feel much like work.

What? Give up our free lunch at Red Gate for a free lunch in a pub? Within an hour, myself and a colleague are at the Railway Vue pub in nearby Impington.

This is all part of Red Gate's aim to hire more Software Engineers and Test Engineers, to help Red Gate grow into one of the greatest software companies in the world (it's already the best small software development company in the UK). Phase one then - buy lunch for Cambridge. Seriously, not just the targeted engineers, but for anyone who could print the voucher and make it to the nearest of the venues, two of which happen to be pubs.

We're here to watch people happily eat a free pub lunch at Red Gate's expense. We also get involved and I swear I didn't order a beer with the food but the landlord says I clearly did and I'm not one to argue.

Red Gate are offering a free iPad to anyone that comes to interview for a Software Engineer or Test Engineer role. We speak to a few engineers who are genuinely interested. We speak to a couple of DBA's too, and encourage them to make speculative applications - no free iPad on offer for them, but that's not really the point. The point is, everyone should apply to work here! It's that good.

We overhear someone ask if 'these vouchers really work?' They do. There's no catch. The free iPad? Again, no catch. If that's what it takes to get talented engineers through our doors for an interview, then that's all good. Once they see where we work and how we work, we think they'll want to come and work with us.

The following day, Red Gate decides to repeat the offer, and that means more hard work, this time at The Castle pub. Another landlord that mis-hears 'mineral water' and serves me a beer. There are many more people clutching the printed vouchers and they all seem very happy to be getting a free lunch from Red Gate. "Come and work for us" we suggest, "lunch is always free!"

So if you're a talented engineer, like free lunches and want a free iPad, you know what to do.

Post by: Adam Walker