Meet the team: Lucy Gilbert, Senior Software Engineer

Meet the Team: Lucy Gilbert, Software Engineer - Get to know our amazing team members and learn about their roles and passions within our company.
Gemma Holmes
 • 
Apr 2023
4 min read

Today, we’re introducing you to Lucy Gilbert, Senior Software Engineer and longest standing member of the team here at Trail.

Hey Lucy, can you tell us a bit about your career background?

During my teens and 20s, I worked in a variety of primarily hospitality roles including several years at Wetherspoons. While I was at Wetherspoons, I taught myself to code in my spare time and got an internship with a hospitality app who kept me on as a freelancer for a few months afterwards. I then got my first permanent coding job working at Trail while it was still a very young startup and I've been here ever since - 7 and a half years so far.

What do you do at Trail?

I'm a Senior Software Engineer who works across the whole app - that's everything from the customer facing app to the background production of reports and data. As the longest standing employee here, a lot of my job is remembering everything we've done over the years, what has worked for us and how we can provide the best experience and value for our customers.

What’s your favourite Trail value?

My favourite value is "Grow your own" because over the years Trail has provided the start to many people's careers. We've taken on people, for some of who it was their very first job, and taught them the skills of the industry and they have gone on to leadership roles and some even starting businesses of their own.

Grow our own.Empower others with trust and autonomy. See their full potential, not just their achievements to date. We believe that any skill or talent can be learned through deliberate practice. Hire for these values and support others to become the best they can be, invest in each other and grow together.’

What’s your top productivity tip?

Checklists - break tasks down into a set of steps that are concise, precise but cover all the essential items. This ensures that tasks are done effectively and consistently, and it can prevent avoidable mistakes. This is covered in more depth in the book 'The Checklist Manifesto', which has been inspiration for Trail's ethos since the early days.

Best moment at Trail so far?

Creating the interactive checklist editor on the Create Task panel. The editor was never a planned piece of work, we used to have a text box to write checklists in - but a few years ago, over the Christmas break, the idea popped into my head. So I designed and built the entire feature over the holiday and it was well received by the rest of the company when we came back in the New Year - we went on to release the feature to the customers shortly after.

Thanks, Lucy!

What customers are saying

"I f****** love Trail, it's taking my businesses to the next level."
Josh Paterson
Owner
"We rarely provide training to our guys, they just bought into the idea straight away. I love that I have a full visual of everyone's activity in front of me."
Katrin Toots
Compliance Manager
“It’s not a paper diary that’s covered in barbecue sauce. We have clarity over what’s done in our sites and are confident going into our audits.”
Jay Brown
Operations
“The EHO visited almost every site last year and every store was given a five star rating."
Jay Brown
Operations Chef
"We turned our Costa Checks and various compliance forms into regular tasks on Trail, which has contributed to some of the best scores we have had."
Delroy Daniels
Operations Director
"Our teams love it, it gives our managers of all levels absolute clarity on what they need to achieve every day."
James Brown
Operations Director

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