What does it really mean to build products that people actually want to use? In this episode of the Moonpig Tech Podcast, hosts Ariella and Rob sit down with Ben, Moonpig’s Director of Product Design, to unpack what it takes to embed user-centric thinking into every corner of a business. From broken door handles to space-themed MRI scanners and handwritten cards, Ben shares the philosophy, processes, and practical tools behind designing experiences that solve real human problems—and spark joy. W...
Jul 04, 2025•28 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In this episode of the Moonpig Tech Podcast , hosts Sam and Leon sit down with Daniel Jeyes and Jake Smith to explore the evolution of platform engineering at Moonpig and the team's journey toward process automation. They dive into how the shift from traditional sysadmin tasks to infrastructure-as-code with Terraform has improved reliability, transparency, and scalability. A highlight of the discussion is their creation of a Slack-based permission escalation bot, built to streamline access to AW...
Jun 06, 2025•38 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In this episode of the Moonpig Tech Podcast , host Ariella is joined by our new co-host Rob and guests Julia Castillo Trujillo and Ross Lockhart to discuss their recent hackathon focused on accessibility. The team shares their personal motivations and highlights the work they did to improve accessibility on the Moonpig website—releasing eight impactful features in under eight hours.
May 02, 2025•16 min•Season 3Ep. 2
In this episode of the Moonpig Tech Podcast , hosts Sam and Richard sit down with Principal Engineer Alexis Lowe to explore the intricacies of event-driven architecture (EDA) and how it's been implemented at Moonpig. Alexis dives deep into how events—such as order creation or user registration—are used to decouple systems, improve scalability, and boost resilience. The discussion touches on AWS tools like EventBridge, SQS, and DynamoDB, and explains concepts such as asynchronous messaging, event...
Apr 04, 2025•15 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Join Sam, Ariella, Richard Pearson, and Soph Yiangou as they explore the world of incident management, sharing insights and strategies for effectively handling unexpected challenges. Discover how we stay prepared and turn surprises into opportunities for growth.
Aug 30, 2024•22 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Data Science Manager Francis Barrett joins Leon & Sam to explain what Data Science is, and how we use it at Moonpig.
Jul 19, 2024•22 min•Season 2Ep. 10
CPTO Georgie Smallwood joins us to discuss her role as a technology exec at Moonpig Links FYI: For Your Improvement - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/847538
May 03, 2024•37 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Ariella and Richard are joined by the incredible Rav Bumbra - founder of Cajigo . Together, they'll be diving into Cajigo's mission to empower more women into tech and exploring how Moonpig supports this journey.
Apr 05, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Leon is joined by Principal Product Designer Hayley Cattlin-Weaver and Senior Software Engineer Jason Prouse who take us through five principles they formed during the build of one of Moonpig's recent innovative features.
Mar 01, 2024•37 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Join Alex & Ava as they take you on the journey of Moonpig's first AI powered feature. From hackathon idea to multilingual implementation, discover how we use AI to help our customers craft personalised messages for their cards, and what we learnt along the way.
Dec 01, 2023•20 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Join Maeve - @MaeveScarry and Leon - @DocLeon as we introduce you to the world of Hackathons - what they are, how we run them at Moonpig and what benefits they bring. In this episode we will talk to the organiser of our most recent Hackathon (Ben - @riggydigs) and a few participants (Megan, Sam - @makesomenoiiise and Luke). Moonpig career's page: https://www.moonpig.com/uk/blog/moonpig-careers/
Nov 03, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 5
In our latest podcast episode, we talk with Senior Software Engineer Jake Smith about the impact of AI programming assistants on the coding landscape. Jake discusses how these tools enhance efficiency by simplifying coding, providing instant error detection, and debugging. He also highlights their role in inspiring innovation and creative problem-solving. Join us to hear Jake's insights on how AI programming assistants are reshaping productivity and the future of software development. GitHub Co...
Oct 06, 2023•28 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Head Of Engineering Richard Pearson ( @catdevnull ) joins Leon & Richard to reveal how we’ve enabled our development teams to focus on delivering business value. SPACE: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3454124 DORA: https://www.leanix.net/en/wiki/vsm/dora-metrics Measuring Developer Productivity: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/developer-productivity-a-new-framework Team Topologies: https://teamtopologies.com/book...
Sep 01, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 3
We already know AWS Lambdas are a great serverless way to run code and at Moonpig we take full advantage of that, with billions of function invocations per month. Principal Developer and AWS Community Builder Ryan Cormack ( @ryancormack ) joins Ariella & Maeve to share some top tips to keep them running fast and cost effectively, using some of the learnings we’ve had from a cost optimisation and tuning drive here at Moonpig. AWS Lambda Power Tuning Tool: https://github.com/alexcasalboni/aws-...
Aug 04, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 2
The Moonpig Tech Podcast is back! We've got some new hosts too - join us to meet Ariella ( @arriiiella ), Maeve ( @MaeveScarry ) & Leon ( @DocLeon ). You can keep in touch with us via our Moonpig Tech twitter account ( @moonpigtech )
Jul 28, 2023•17 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Accessibility is an important consideration in web development. Senior Engineer Robert Smith and Engineering Manager Andy O'Brien join us to explain just how important it is, and how an accessible website is better for everyone. We are also very excited to welcome Saphie Abayomi to the hosting team.
Feb 15, 2021•34 min
People Director Sasha Watson (@sash_watson) and Product Manager Fabia Lewis join us to discuss how we have managed to continue our recruitment and onboarding processes while everyone is working from home. If you are interested in hearing more about our open roles, you can view them here: https://jobs.lever.co/moonpig
Dec 18, 2020•27 min
The iOS platform has changed a lot since it’s launch in 2007. iOS Engineering Manager Dave Perry joins us to discuss the evolution of the platform, and how Moonpig has transformed our iOS app to become a market leader.
Nov 02, 2020•48 min
In this episode, we are welcoming back Jaimen Lathia, who will take us through the process of deciding if a software system should be built, bought, or rented.
Aug 07, 2020•42 min
We are joined by CTO Peter Donlon and CPO Ronan Tighe to discuss how the technology team has helped the business adapt in response to the global pandemic.
May 27, 2020•34 min
Everyone is all about the data, but what does it actually take to build a modern data platform? How do you structure a team around this? How do I get buy in to do this? What value does it provide? What does data driven decision making actually mean within a business? And how do you do all this within a budget? We speak with VP of Engineering Gordon Pretorius who can provide some insights into the approach we took, the problems we encountered, the solutions we found and ultimately how it’s change...
Apr 20, 2020•38 min
Head of Security Tash Norris joins us to discuss how we’re approaching security as part of our software development lifecycle. Interested in joining the team? You can find out about our open roles here: https://apply.workable.com/moonpig-group/ You can also follow us on Twitter @moonpigtech
Mar 16, 2020•39 min
In this episode, we are joined by Dr Leon Hewitt and Esha Bakshi, who explain how trust & psychological safety are the pillars of a high performing team.
Feb 10, 2020•42 min
In this episode, Engineering Manager Andy Lowry takes us through the evolution of Moonpig's load testing approach.
Jan 13, 2020•35 min
In this episode we are joined by Todd Yates, who takes us through the various iterations of the Android app's architecture and how each iteration improved testability. You can find the talk Todd mentions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIMkBQpW0Q8
Dec 09, 2019•38 min
At Moonpig, we run code katas every fortnight. Jaimen Lathia joins us to explain how we organise the sessions, and the benefits of regular deliberate practise.
Nov 11, 2019•29 min
Developers Lizz and Deji tell us how they began their careers in Software Development by attending Bootcamps, and how Moonpig are helping them continue to grow.
Oct 14, 2019•30 min
More and more people are consuming the internet using mobile devices, to the point now where it’s overtaking traditional desktop browser usage. Given the differences in screen size, variable bandwidth and the dreaded ‘offline’ scenarios this brings with it, it’s important that Mobile clients are considered from the offset. That brings about its own challenges, especially when you are working with an existing system that was built before Mobile really gained traction. We chat with UX designer Han...
Sep 09, 2019•35 min
User researcher Alex Lee explains what it means to 'talk to your customer'
Aug 12, 2019•26 min
Richard and Jakob discuss how Moonpig support people's career ambitions, by providing clear progression options and a consistent assessment model with Head of Engineering, Neil Sheppard
Jul 15, 2019•25 min
