Meet Chris Toal: Travel Lover and Coding Specialist

Tell me a bit more about what you do here?

We help make sure customers get their orders correctly and on time. We do that by ensuring a stable factory system by maintaining, improving and shipping new code which controls our factory processes.

How long have you worked at tails?

Roughly two years.

How did you get into your current line of work?

I lived and worked in China for years and I eventually realised that at some point I would need to come home and find a job. I had no idea what I would do. I would read self help books to try and figure things out and while they did help in a lot of ways, when it came to career the advice was always to find and follow your passion. That made things hard for me because I had no idea what my passion was. I knew I wanted a career, I wanted security and a skillset that was in demand.

Fast forward a year or so and I’m back in London, struggling to pay rent and no extra money for life. It sucked and something had to change. I started looking to see what jobs were out. There were so many well paid tech jobs. I thought to myself, I wish I could apply to these jobs.

Facebook must have been spying on me or something because next thing you know there were all these advertisements on my feed for various courses and coding bootcamps. I remember the choice was between becoming a personal trainer or a web developer. I made a list of pros and cons for each and decided web development was what I wanted to do. I applied to study with a reputable online bootcamp and was enrolled shortly after. It wasn’t long after completing the bootcamp that I found my first tech job.

What’s your most memorable moment at tails.com so far?

Definitely the time we got taken Go Karting. Competition was fierce. It was a great day out and it gave me a chance to get to know more of the engineering team.

Quick Fire Q’s

Dog or Cat?

Dogs with cat like tendencies.

Outside of work, what do you love doing?

I love to travel, spend time with friends and family, eat out, play video games, work out, and I also really enjoy cooking.

What was the name of your first pet and what were they?

Benjamin the hamster. He was cute, RIP Benji.

What’s your advice for someone thinking about applying for a job at tails.com…?

I would say that being authentic and true to yourself is really important. Wanting to learn and grow is also very well received here so come with that growth mindset and I’m sure you’ll be in with a great chance.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Hurry up and learn how to code! Also, don’t be afraid to take more chances.

A typical weekend for me is…

Catching up with friends and family, chilling in front of the TV, eating out, working out and sleeping as much as I can.

One thing people don’t know about you

I’m not really a dog person. Shhh!