Spotlight on... Aaron, lead chaos engineer

Aaron: In my current role, I lead the engineering team for global marketing at Octopus Energy. This involves managing the tech for all of our marketing content and customer products worldwide.

Aaron: Note: The name 'chaos monkey' originated at Netflix: a software built to test the resilience of their tech by throwing up problems spontaneously for the team to solve.

We've slightly adapted the term.

At Octopus we’ve extracted the “chaos” into its own team. Our tech platform Kraken, is constantly balancing urgent projects from many clients and markets, so it needs structure. The Chaos Monkeys team started as a way to separate crazy ideas from more organised projects. It allows us to work quickly and take on innovative projects that other teams might find challenging.

So, for Octopus’ customer experience to stay as good as it is, we need to be agile, close to customers and incredibly reactive. It’s essential some developers are free to create something new and exciting very quickly outside of the wider tech team structure.

Aaron: Incredibly closely! In many companies, there’d be months of planning testing and fine-tuning before a new feature or product saw the light of day. We build MVPs very quickly, put them out into the world, and immediately start gathering real customer feedback on it. I sit in the marketing team so the social media manager can stick her head round the desk and read out a tweet — then I can fix problems and make experiences better based on what customers really want.

Aaron: One notable project is the Saving Sessions campaign, which is our scheme that rewards people for using less energy at peak times. It was a huge step towards changing the way the grid works, and it’s taught us a lot about customer engagement.

Aaron: It was a massive project involving the app, Kraken developers, Octopus front-end devs, plus plenty of “chaos”-wranglers. We often had less than a day’s notice before a Saving Session, which meant we had to alert 1.5 million customers within hours. To manage this, we created a WhatsApp broadcast channel, quickly reaching 300,000 customers. Announcing the session was like sending a mini-DDOS attack to our app and website. Kraken is stable but the surge would challenge any site. I built an “optimistic opt-in” system, reducing API calls needed to sign up from 7 to 2. We tested it on a small subset of customers within a week and it was running midway through the project.

Another exciting project was kicking off the rollout of our custom typeface, Chromatophore, on our sites around the world (fun fact: this includes the text you're currently reading). We’d been told it would take us 6 months, and we did it in 6 days. This was possible because of our awesome Coral design system, and because we set up a competition with a (crappy) prize between our international teams, to see who could get it into production first.

Aaron: We have been lucky enough to work on lots of interesting projects, but one that stands out is the Winter Workout campaign. We came up with an innovative campaign and saw a significant impact on customers' bills - it helped people use less gas and save money during an energy crisis. Seeing the impact was incredibly rewarding and made us proud. We weren’t exactly sure how it would work initially, but it worked out perfectly and it proved itself in the data. We ended up knocking £5m worth off of customer bills, in just a few months.

Aaron: I studied Computer Science, which felt natural to me. Although I initially wanted to be an architect, my interest in how people interact with the digital world led me to computer science. I particularly enjoyed the front-end side of things and transitioned to being a front-end developer.

Aaron: Before Octopus, I worked as a front-end developer at a traditional financial services company. When I joined Octopus, we didn't have clearly defined teams, and I started by doing a bit of everything. I later worked on our tech platform Kraken before moving into my current role.

Aaron: My team is mostly hybrid, working from home part-time, but I'm in the office most of the time and sit with the marketing team. Being near an office helps with our instantaneous way of working but it's also great for conversations and being social. It's motivating to be around others working towards similar goals. We aim to bring the team together a few times a year for workshops and social events to make up for being spread out.

Aaron: The most enjoyable part of my job is definitely the immediate feedback and seeing the impact of our work.

Aaron: Managing expectations and finding alternative routes when blocked can be challenging. Sometimes it's about finding the half solution that gets you 80% of the way there. That's just the nature of things when you want to build something to share within days, rather than weeks. So we always need to be able to think on our feet and find solutions quickly but that does keep things dynamic and interesting.

Aaron: So working on initiatives like Saving Sessions which directly impact demand flexibility and make energy more efficient and engaging for customers means a lot. I love that our work directly aligns with our goal of electrifying the grid and promoting green energy.

Aaron: Replicating UK success in European markets is the next big thing. We're focusing on applying our successful initiatives to new markets and adapting them to local needs. It's a constant conversation with local teams to identify the most effective strategies. The goal is to have a significant impact quickly, but it's a complex problem space and each country has unique energy and customers priorities, so we're learning as we go.

Aaron: Start with small projects that solve annoyances or inefficiencies. Show how you can find and solve problems effectively. It's about practical problem-solving, not just following trends.

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