So Martin, you’re the resident app guy yes? Can you give me an introduction to your baby, the Avinode Marketplace app?
Yes, so the Avinode Marketplace application is for our brokers and operators. Brokers can search for available aircraft, do some requests, and they will have a response from the operators who can also use the app and respond to all their requests. The latest feature in the app is the messaging, so they can actually type a message and get a conversation going, which I think is pretty powerful because you are always on the run with the app.
What are some of the biggest advantages of using the app?
You have the notifications so that’s pretty fast feedback. I’ve heard of a lot of customers using their iphone next to their computer because they have notifications on their device, and they can go and update their desktop page. The notification system is pretty powerful in the app I would say. Other than that, “on-the-go” I would say because a lot of people these days are on the run and sometimes not sitting in their office and it’s a good thing to have in their pocket. For operators for example, being able to respond quickly to a request or as a broker when you’re out with your customer then they can actually do a search and request an aircraft on the go.
Are you doing both code and UX design?
So we work in teams here. I’m the only app developer/programmer so I’m the one responsible for coding the app but then we are a team so for example my app needs to fetch some data from the server and that’s specific for the app sometimes so we need like a java developer helping me with the end points or the data from the service side. So we do a lot of things together in the team like code reviews and making sure the quality is as expected in the app. For example we have the test feed working so usually we work one java developer, one IoS developer and one test lead and team lead, we’re all working together.
What is the funnest part of your day when it comes to coding?
Coding in general is pretty creative. I’m a creative person, I like to build things, I would like to believe that if I wasn’t working with code I’d be doing something else creative. So that is the most fun part, to build things and see things happen in the app. It doesn’t matter if it’s adding a button or changing a color, you see the results immediately. And then in the long term, you see the growth in users, you see more users are coming in, you see the user base is growing and seems to like it.