By Simon Turvey, VP of Engineering, Qualis Flow

Time flies, as they say, and it’s been a month already since I joined Qflow as VP Engineering.  It’s a good point at which to pause, take a breath, and reflect on the reasons I wanted to join them on this crazy adventure, what I’ve learned so far, and what excites me about our future together.

I’ve been in technology for a shade over 20 years now and that time has encompassed everything from embedded systems development at a very large multinational to CTO at a bootstrapped startup and very many diverse experiences between those points. The sweet spot for me though is where Qflow is now. When the hyperventilating panic over existential threats subsides a little, and you can focus on realising the full impact and potential of the original vision.

The vision we have at Qflow, of a construction industry that more effectively balances the delivery of the built environment society needs with the imperative of preserving our natural environment for future generations, resonates strongly with me, as the father of a 6-year-old girl who has yet to start asking the awkward “WTF dad?” questions about the world we’ve created. I want – no, I need – to be able to answer her from the position of being a role model for both individual and collective responsibility.

Sustainability matters to our family. Together we’ve reduced single-use plastics through refillable and environmentally friendly cleaning products, focused on creating a wildlife and pollinator-friendly garden, and sourced our electricity from community-owned renewable generation projects ( https://rippleenergy.com/). These are small steps, but important ones.

So, when I met Brittany and Jade, and learned about the opportunity for impact in a heavily polluting industry that’s also under-served by technology, I was immediately attracted to this intersection of personal interest and my professional background. That opportunity, coupled with their deep experience of the construction industry itself, meant it was clear that Qflow was uniquely positioned to be a force for positive change.

I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks. While there’s the bread and butter of immersing oneself in the product, the technology, and the customer problem space there’s also the exciting process of getting to know the team. We have incredible people with amazing ideas. More than that, they love working together and do so with a huge degree of respectful hustle. The level of Psychological Safety I have seen demonstrated by team members is not only greater than I’ve seen anywhere before but it’s also humbling, moving, and inspirational. This is a culture that starts in the middle, with our co-founders, and infectiously permeates outwards to create a truly enabling environment.

When I started writing this post, I imagined that I’d write about OCR, LLMs, system scalability, team structure, and planning processes. Those things are important, and we will come back to them in later posts. For the most part though I’ve learned that we’re in great shape, with no greater challenges that might be expected for a startup at our stage of evolution. That early learning though, that we have the team and the culture to handle anything that comes our way, marks us out as having something special – something that really isn’t found everywhere. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of that, and to call myself a Qflower.

Interested in a career at Qflow? Check out our open roles here