Name: Holger Lösken
Title: Senior Web Engineer

How long have you been with CrossLend? What do you like about working here?

I work as a senior back-end developer and I’ve been with CrossLend for 7 months. FinTech is new to me – I enjoy spending time digging into topics and researching how we can improve certain products, whether that’s making things run faster or improving the overall experience for our clients. From a technical point of view you come across a lot of Fintech or financial terms that you need to understand – it’s a whole different world. I find it very interesting, and very exciting.

What made you decide to work at CrossLend?

A friend recommended I join CrossLend – he had only positive things to say about the company. From the first interview on, I felt that CrossLend had a very nice approach to get to know people. The whole interview process was very structured and transparent. The openness about the decisions to be made and the immediate feedback you receive, raises the bar for an excellent interview process compared with other companies hiring in the technology space.

What’s your background /expertise? What are you mainly working on at CrossLend?

In the past I mainly worked for agencies in the areas of fashion and tourism. FinTech is new for me. From a product point of view, our mindset at CrossLend is focused on the longer term, rather than needing to meet short term demands of a seasonal business such as my experience in fashion. We need to be aware of the longer term aims of the product and business managers.

Looking at the CrossLend platform, what is one innovation or product feature that impresses you?

The Data Suite impresses me a lot. Here we import loan data given to us in various data formats and amounts, transform them into a standardized format and run calculations against them. A connection between multiple systems and services, various programming languages and patterns work together to make this a highly efficient and automated process.

More broadly, another thing I value is that we have a very up to date tech stack, using various AWS services and the latest versions of programming languages and tools. Nothing we are using is old or old-fashioned – we have even incorporated patents developed in recent years. In my experience, some companies can get stuck in an ancient tech stack – you may connect finance with the COBOL programming language – but that’s not the case with CrossLend, we are very up to date.

Where do you live? Outside of work, what’s a fun way you like to spend your free time?

I live in Saxony, Dresden. I enjoy going to the gym regularly. I value the work-life balance, the flexible model that CrossLend uses. I can pursue my hobbies, even if that means doing some work in the evenings.

What are some podcasts or books you would recommend?

For good reads I like Increment, a tech magazine by Stripe. For blogs about coding/PHP I can recommend https://matthiasnoback.nl/ and https://stitcher.io/. For listening I like the podcasts Full Stack Radio or if/else.

How would you describe the experience of working at CrossLend – the office itself, remote work opportunities, work-life balance, and of course your wonderful co-workers?

I work remotely, with visits to the office every month [during normal times] in order to maintain some contact with my colleagues. But as a remote worker I’ve never felt that I am on the outside and not connected to the office and the team – it’s very inclusive. The HR team is also very supportive – they regularly get in touch with us to check that it’s all going well.

One thing I like is the international aspect of CrossLend with the various nationalities. I have been learning Russian for four years, and it’s easy to find someone who is a Russian native speaker and with whom I can practice speaking.

CrossLend has six company values (innovation, sustainability, fun, open dialogue, respect & fairness, and teamwork) – which of these do you most identify with, and why?

I would say Open Dialogue. In tech, it’s quite common to be in a situation where someone has a strong opinion on how to do something the ‘right way’. But with our open discussions, even for topics where I don’t have a lot of experience, I feel comfortable raising my hand and sharing my ideas. It’s always valued, there’s no minimizing opinions even on very complicated topics. It’s very open through-out the whole company, and I value that a lot.