I have loved all the stages of my career, from engineering, through my years of fin-tech, to co-founding my own AI company.Working for a consultancy back before university taught me that while I liked solving complex technical challenges, I get much more of a kick from delivering the results to real people. Especially if I own the project, even if that was initially a little scary, back in my teens.I worked with and ran a series of fantastic teams at Credit Suisse, which makes life so much more enjoyable, and I still have many close friends from those years. One thing I loved about my time there was that my desk was nearly always on the trading floor, close to our users, and in the middle of the buzz. I've never really been comfortable in a too-quiet office since. I enjoyed all the travel to the offices worldwide (the Manhatten apartment they gave me for six months was a favourite), which left me with a marked preference for getting face-to-face with colleagues: sometimes video calls just aren't up to the job. In my later years at CS I ran Equity Capital Markets IT globally, where I had real autonomy in juggling demands from trading desks around the world and working with the team to satisfy their needs: challenging at times, but the responsibility and ownership of delivery made it worthwhile.From there the attraction of founding an AI company with a friend was irresistible: running one's own business is a lot of hard work, but worth it. The analytics aspects of previous roles led naturally to data science and AI, and it also gave me the opportunity to extend out my IT skillset as I built our cloud platform, in a way you don't get to do in a bigger organisation. Then there's the extra stuff, like the business-development side (OK, maybe I don't love doing the accounts). It also tied back to my engineering knowledge with projects for industrial clients; leading our 3-year autonomous vehicle Innovate UK project; and our foray into robotics, building a series of quadruped robots. It has also allowed me to work with a range of talented, enthusiastic teams across many companies and industries.Outside of work, I love to host, and see people enjoy themselves: my annual summer party features bands, DJs, a bouncy castle, and occasional circus acts, and I'm glad to say contacts from all my past walks of life make appearances at them!I have loved all of it... but if pushed I'd have to say that going to the office to build and program robot dogs is the coolest so far!