Getting to know… Lawrence Belle, Junior Web Developer

Our Head of People, Rob Curley, recently chatted with Lawrence Belle, Junior Web Developer to find out what prompted him to get into web development and to learn a bit about his Atomic journey to date.

So Lawrence, how long have you worked at Atomic?

I started working at Atomic during the early part of 2023.

What was your background and what stood out at Atomic to make you decide to join?

My academic background lies in mathematics. I’ve always taken to maths and its structural methodology. This spans from completing my maths GCSE a year early to getting a maths degree at the University of Nottingham.

During my time at university, I took scientific computation modules which required me to teach myself some basic programming to solve problems. I found myself drawn to this and I continued to teach myself how to program in my free time. I would become more and more invested in this hobby and as my time at university came near to a close I knew I wanted to make it a career.

I then searched online for local software agencies since I knew I wanted to work with and learn from software specialists with a broad range of skills. This is when I found Atomic and upon learning about their work culture and impressive client list, it was only natural that I wanted to be a part of the company.

Tell us a bit about your role

In my role as a Junior Web Developer, it is my responsibility to translate the desires of the customer into something actionable, and eventually code with the assistance of my peers. 

This makes the developer role the focal point of software creation, incorporating ideas from the design, client services, and QA team to finalise a product.

I enjoy creating solutions to the customer’s requirements, constantly giving me the chance to learn new methodologies and technologies, while ensuring that my code is both easy to understand and reuse so the rest of the team can easily collaborate on it.

How do you see your role developing over the next year or so?

With Atomic being such a great place to learn and develop my skills, I see myself only becoming a better and more reliable developer. Experience can mean everything with a role like this, and with Atomic’s client list, there is no shortage of experience to be had.

The developer role itself I only see becoming more important as we continue to depend on technology, and it seems like there is no better time than now to learn how to harness the strengths of AI!

What do you enjoy the most about working at Atomic?

The team and culture at Atomic are amazing. You definitely feel the support of everyone here as they only want what is best for you. Being able to work for large brands helps make your work feel substantial and the perk of being able to work remotely even in a junior role is very much appreciated as well.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I enjoy rock climbing in my spare time. It’s really fun being able to pour all your focus into a seemingly simple task with lots of small intricacies and complexities. It’s not always obvious how to get to the top of the wall and so climbing calls on your problem solving skills, and past that some climbs ask for a lot of physical effort. 

Climbing has a super friendly community and so you often find yourself sparking up conversations and working together with other climbers to help each other figure out the climb. It also helps that there is a climbing gym so close to the Atomic office.

Tell us something interesting about you

When I wrote my first lines of code during GCSE computing I was really not a fan of it. I was very much of the opinion that I would never do it in any serious capacity. Fast forward 10 years or so, and I’ve really grown to love it. I am only enjoying my time developing more and more as time goes on.