---
title: "Tech Bites: the tech team's turn at the town hall"
description: "Intrack holds a town hall every quarter where each department presents what it's been doing and what's next. Tech Bites is what I call our section, and we did the second one this week."
url: "https://rayson.me/writing/tech-bites/"
category: "Career"
author: "Janarayson"
published: 2022-10-12
---

Intrack is a market research company, but there's quite a bit of technology behind what we do.

Our tech department has five people, and between us we build and maintain Hargapedia, MailerTrack, DES, OPTrack, MOTrack, the scrapers, barcode systems and various reports the business needs.

Some of these are products people outside the company use. Others are internal systems that different departments depend on every day.

Every quarter, Intrack holds a town hall. Each head of department presents what their team has been doing over the past few months and what's coming next, and the tech department gets its turn like everyone else.

Tech Bites is the name I came up with for our section. The first one was in July. This week's was the second, Tech Bites 1.5.

<Figure
  src={teamSlide}
  alt="Rayson at a laptop in the office, with a webcam on a small tripod and a ring light in front of him, and the Team Introduction slide on the screen behind showing five team members with their photos, roles and joining years"
  caption="Presenting the team slide at this week's town hall, with a webcam on a tripod for colleagues joining from home."
  wide
/>

## Who we are and what we do

We start by introducing the team.

There's a photo of each person, the year they joined and an introduction to our newest member. The department itself was only established in 2017, so we're still a relatively young team within Intrack.

After that, we explain what we actually do.

Our work falls into two broad areas. The first is creating solutions, building the products and tools the business needs. The second is supporting the business units with the systems they're already using.

We have a table showing every system under the department, who is responsible for it and who's there as backup.

<Figure
  src={departmentTable}
  alt="Rayson standing in front of the projector screen in the office, which shows the Department Function slide: a table of systems down the side, Hargapedia, MailerTrack 2, DES, OPTrack, MOTrack, Scrapers, Barcode System and Adhoc Reports, with the five team members across the top and ticks and Support marked in the cells"
  caption="The systems we look after, with a primary person and backup assigned to each."
  wide
/>

It's a long list for five people. And while we work on different parts of it, we still need to know enough about each other's systems to keep things running when someone isn't around.

## What we've been building

The middle of our section covers what's happened since the beginning of the year.

This time, there was quite a bit to go through.

For Hargapedia, we had the new feature guide for first-time users on the app and website, Hargapedia TV, referral links and the soft launch of Hargapedia Singapore's website.

MailerTrack had its Plus add-on and the email signature system.

There was also work on DES to handle cases where manufacturers reuse barcodes, which is something that needs accounting for when you're working with product data.

After going through what we've released, we move on to what's still in development.

[Retailer price sharing](/writing/retailer-price-sharing/) went live this month, and we also showed a few things that were still being tested.

It's a chance for people from other departments to see what's been happening across the different products, rather than just the systems they happen to use themselves.

## Ending with a quiz

We finish Tech Bites with a short quiz.

Nothing complicated. We put up a question, and the first person to raise their hand gets to answer.

What does DES stand for? What does RPS stand for? What's the address of Hargapedia Singapore's website?

After spending most of our slot explaining our systems and what we've been working on, it's a way to see how much everyone remembers.

The town hall setup is fairly simple too. We present the slides on the screen in the office, while colleagues working from home join through a webcam mounted on a tripod, with a ring light beside it.

That's Tech Bites for now. Our turn at the town hall, a look at what five engineers have been doing, and a few questions at the end to see who's been paying attention.