#294
May 19, 2024
Work
A while ago I mentioned a project I was leading, that had to be handed over when I changed teams. Well, that project has launched now (it actually did so a few weeks ago when I was in Japan), and it was a big project that unlocks a major business priority so I wanted to brag about it a little.
GoCardless is, conceptually, a fairly simple product: you want to collect payments via direct debit, but don’t want to integrate with the banks yourself, so you use GoCardless as a middle-man to handle that for you. GoCardless submits the payment instructions at the appropriate time, collects the money, and sends it to your bank account in one lump sum, after deducting fees.
GoCardless started as a UK company processing BACS direct debits. But now it operates in many countries. Here comes the problem I was working on: payouts (sending that lump sum of collected payments to the merchant) for all currencies happens at 11AM UK time, because that’s what worked well for BACS. Receiving your money at 11AM UK time is fine for UK merchants, but if you’re an Australian merchant that’s after the end of the working day, after the bank cutoff for same-day transfers, so you actually receive your money the following morning. A whole day later than it would be if AUD payouts were done at a sensible local time.
Not great.
So the project I was leading was to fix this. To break assumptions throughout our code that payouts operates in UK time. That a single run of the payouts process doesn’t cross UTC midnight. That payouts in all currencies happen at roughly the same time of day.
And you know what? We did it. It’s live, it has been live for weeks now, and Australian merchants get their money 24 hours earlier than they used to. And now that the foundational work has been done, localising payouts for other currencies is just a small bit of incremental work.
Books
No books this week!
I’ve really fallen out of the habit of reading before bed, I need to bring that back.
Roleplaying Games
I’ve spent the last few days honing my (almost nonexistent) frontend skills, learning some React and Next.js by building a little dungeon time tracker:
It tracks what the current time of day is, rolls for random encounters, and counts down timers. I used it during today’s Arden Vul session and it worked great. I’m not sure what to add next, but I’m always looking for ways to streamline the in-session bookkeeping.
The Halls of Arden Vul
We had a very focussed session this week, the players came in with the goal of linking up two fragments of the same dungeon floor, and they got it!
It was a bit touch-and-go for a while though, if they hadn’t decided to press on with clearing a collapsed corridor we may have ended the session with them still having no idea how this system of caves and interrupted construction related to the rest of the Thothian regions.
Along the way they found and rescued some trapped goblins (who would likely have starved if the party didn’t clear that corridor), bringing them home and getting another reward (and a new request) from the king. Next session: following up on some interesting things they learned during their explorations, and then some faction diplomacy!
Miscellaneous
I redesigned the site! I’m now using Magick.css, with a few small tweaks.