Meet the Head of Engineering at Weel: Building the Future of Spend Management

Name: Matthew Egan

Current Job Title: Head of Engineering

At Weel, we believe that financial technology can make a genuine difference in people's lives, and we're passionate about making it accessible to everyone. That’s why we’re on a mission to help businesses streamline and control company-wide spending without holding their team back. To achieve this goal, we rely on a team of talented engineers who are dedicated to creating innovative solutions that push the boundaries of what's possible in fintech. 

We recently sat down with Matt Egan, our Head of Engineering, to learn more about his background, his experiences at Weel, and his vision for the future of fintech.

From Robotics to Fintech: A Journey into Engineering

Q: Can you tell us about your background and how you became interested in engineering? 

A: I started my journey into engineering at a young age, fuelled by my passion for technology and a curiosity for how things work. With the help of supportive teachers and mentors, I participated in various robotics and programming competitions throughout my schooling, eventually leading me to complete my first computer science course at UNSW in year 11. After graduating from university, I worked on honing my programming skills, eventually landing my first junior engineering role.

Joining Weel: A Passion for Making a Difference

Q: What brought you to Weel?

A: I’d been working for a few years and was looking for the next challenge. I knew I wanted to work in a place where I could make a significant impact and see my work helping users each day. When I met with Russ and Dan, it was clear that Weel was the place to be to make that happen.

Challenges and Successes in Engineering at Weel

Q: How do you balance the need to move quickly and deliver results with the need to maintain a high level of quality in your work? 

A: Our team works with an agile approach like most modern engineering teams. To us, this looks like 2-week sprints with particular groups of engineers focussed on different parts of the system/product. These particular focus areas must be balanced to account for new feature development, system improvements, bug fixes and any additional operational work. By ensuring that each team is focused on one area we are able to reduce context switching while making sure that no one area is underrepresented in the work being completed. In addition to focusing our development efforts, we also make use of test-driven development (TDD) to ensure that our code is well tested as we are developing it as well as both an automated and manual QA function to make sure that project requirements are met and we haven’t introduced any funny behaviour for our users. Coupled with production monitoring, we are able to identify any new issues quickly and action them rapidly to ensure each release is not only introducing new improvements but also maintaining a high bar of quality.

Collaboration and Communication: Keys to Success at Weel

Q: How important is collaboration and communication at Weel? 

A: Collaboration and communication are key to success. Our engineering team works closely with product management and design to ensure that everyone is aligned on the problems at hand and the solutions being proposed. The team also acts as an escalation point for customer support and success functions, enabling them to diagnose and fix problems quickly and efficiently.

Staying Ahead of the Curve: Keeping Up with the Latest Trends in Fintech

Q: Describe some of the unique challenges of working on a product in a start-up environment? 

A: When working on a product in a startup it can be very tempting to build more than you need to because there are so many good ideas coming from your users and your team. However, being in a resource-constrained environment means that you can’t do this and you must ruthlessly prioritise what is going to actually bring the most value to the users and the business which is a very challenging and ongoing process. Additionally, if you reach product market fit you may see a big uptick in the usage of your product and an additional load on your systems and features. This growth can often bring new problems and bugs into the light which adds more stress to the prioritisation challenge as you seek to balance additional features with bugs and other operational work.

 Q: What makes the product unique and valuable for users? 

A:  Our product is unique in that a user can complete their full spend management lifecycle without the need for multiple tools as the funds are held and allocated within Weel, the payment made with Weel and any additional post-expense processes handled within Weel. This all-in-one experience means we’re able to save our users countless hours both managing their expenses or integrating other systems. 

Q: What sets the organisation's product apart from others in the market, and how does the engineering team contribute to that? 

A: Weel is the most comprehensive spend management platform in the market. Our product and engineering team has been able to achieve this by balancing both breadth and depth of each feature over the product's lifetime. This is achieved by focusing the team in one area to reach a baseline level of functionality before shifting into a more iterative approach to maintenance and improvement over time to ensure that we are able to improve all of our features evenly over time.

Join the Team at Weel: Be Part of the Future of Spend Management

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring engineers who are just starting out in their careers? 

A: Don’t be afraid to say yes. Early in your career, there will be plenty of moments when different tasks are quite daunting. These are the moments that you will learn the most as you only feel uncomfortable because the task is going to challenge you. The more challenging tasks that you face, the more skills and knowledge you’re going to acquire which will help you as you progress. 

Q Discuss the opportunities that come with working in a start-up, such as the ability to move quickly and make an impact. 

A: Working in a startup is a fantastic experience as you will often be able to move quickly on big ideas, try new things easily and be able to see your work bringing value to your users every day. Each day has a different challenge in a startup as the business and product moves towards the biggest opportunities which means you’ll be able to work in a variety of different areas to challenge yourself and develop new skills at a rapid pace. 

If you're passionate about fintech and want to be part of a dynamic, innovative team that's changing the face of Spend Management, consider joining us. We're always looking for talented engineers who share our vision and can help us build the future of fintech. At Weel, you'll have the opportunity to work on exciting projects, collaborate with talented colleagues, and make a real difference in people's lives. Check out our open roles here.