The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is carrying out spot check inspections across the UK on employers suspected of being non-compliant with their workplace pensions duties. With this in mind, this blog provides a refresher on minimum employer pension contributions.
In this blog we round up some key points from recent Government guidance, including relaxation of COVID-19 risk assessment requirements.
The theme of this year’s Stress Awareness Month is ‘community’. With that in mind, we look at how employers can work towards creating a supportive and inclusive community at work when dealing with staff who work remotely.
An additional Bank Holiday has been announced to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. But before you start pulling out the bunting, we look at who’s actually entitled to the day off.
A quick round-up of what’s new in COVID-19 protections for business tenants, including updates on which temporary protections have now ended.
After P&O Ferries hit the news for making 800 staff redundant in one fell swoop, we’ve set out a refresher on how to carry out a proper redundancy process, including template documents to help you streamline your process.
Mike Bell
UI Engineer
Hello, I’m Mike.
I’ve a BSc in ‘Computing Science’ and a MSc in ‘Computing for Financial Markets’ from the University of Stirling.
I’ve previously worked as a Software Developer, coding in C & Java. However my current passion is for all things JavaScript and the Web. I’ve also worked in the music industry as an Events Producer/Organizer and then as a Financial Markets Trader, each for approximately ten years.
Michael Fernandez
UI Engineer
Michael graduated from Royal Holloway with a degree in Computer Science before joining the Sparqa Legal team. The first junior developer in the company’s history, he managed to bribe his way in with snacks and his mad ping pong skills. Fun fact: He didn’t know his name was Michael until he was 12 years old.
Jordan Milton
UI Engineer
Jordan has been working as an allegedly professional developer for the last 6 years, though that was really just a natural progression from a childhood that largely revolved around playing computer games. Jordan is pretty confident this bio won’t be read so he feels safe buffing the character count with this sentence that can be ignored. The main difference is that he now gets paid to spend all day at a computer.
Beth Allchurch
UI Engineer
Beth left academic philosophy to become a software developer. Before joining Sparqa Legal she spent 3 years at a London-based marketing agency and 6 months freelancing as an app developer.
Tom Gould
Server-Side Engineer
Prior to joining Sparqa Legal, Tom worked as a software engineer in the music publishing industry. He has experience with a broad range of languages, specialising in the JVM. Tom graduated from the University of York with an MEng in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence.
Mesfin Mebrate
Server-Side Engineer
Mesfin is a software developer for Sparqa Legal. Prior to joining the company, he worked in the healthcare publishing industry for 3 years, focussing on developing and maintaining content pipelines for the British National Formulary. Mesfin holds a BSc in Computer Science from the Queen Mary University of London.
Piotr Dorobisz
Server-Side Engineer
Piotr moved to London in 2014. Before joining Sparqa Legal he worked as a back-end developer for various companies including Gumtree UK. His experience is mainly in JVM-based environment but he has also worked with many other technologies and languages. Piotr graduated from University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland with an MSc in Computer Science.
Gonzalo Fernandez-Victorio
Platform Engineer
In tech since the late 1990s, he’s also been in Sparqa for quite some time.
These days, he tries to help with anything platform related. Which usually include words like AWS (Amazon’s servers), Kubernetes (a funny name for easier deployments) and SAML2 (a monster that helps with user management). He gets excited when he hears about Serverless.
He’s Spaniard (but he doesn’t like paella), Forestry Engineer (I kid you not) and father of twins (yup).
Adam Coales
Lead Engineer
Prior to joining Sparqa Legal, Adam worked as a senior software engineer in the music publishing industry. He has experience with a broad range of languages, specialising in the JVM. Adam graduated from the University of Bristol with an MEng in Computer Science.
Aiden Shaw
Product Owner
Aiden spent time working at several start-ups as well as working for NGO Greenpeace prior to joining Sparqa Legal. Aiden works collaboratively with both the Product and Content teams on many aspects of product development and fine-tuning, often relating to the template automation aspect of Sparqa Legal. He enjoys working on a range of projects and graduated with a 2.1 degree in Management (BSc) from the University of East Anglia.
