I recently had a routine consultation with my doctor and during that 10-minute conversation, he penned a small novel. As I was leaving, he plucked his smouldering hands up from the keyboard and gave me a dazed look. I knew that look, I was a mortgage advisor - I'd felt that too.
A mortgage advisor is a challenging job. You're an advisor, confidant, consigliere, friend and open ear. Your job is to listen, ask good questions, communicate well and be a proactive problem-solver. Every day, you traverse an imagined future with your client, holding their hand, joyfully plotting the trail of what their future may look like. There's a lot to remember.
This becomes more difficult when you can feel the warm, anxious breath of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) down your spine. The FCA are like insecure ex-partner. You're constantly looking over your shoulder, having to justify yourself. Why did you recommend this and not that...? To the consumer, the FCA is a blessing; to the ethical advisor, a curse.
The brokerage I worked for, one of the largest in the UK, were were using internal systems that even the Soviet Union would have been embarrassed by. We used a proprierty crm that was likely built 20 years ago, and last updated 10 years ago. It was now "too difficult to change".
I thought technology was supposed to help us, liberate us. Instead it feels like it's imprisoned us.
So, these two things, FCA regulations, that didn't fit with existing workflows, and horrific internal systems, have forced me to fix it myself. So I embarked upon becoming a software engineer. I chose the Makers Academy bootcamp to get me started, as I wanted to move at pace. I'm now building mortgage tools to help simplify the process.
My job always was, and still is to solve problems. The medium has changed from giving personal mortgage advice, to building and maintaining systems that liberate us instead of imprisoning us.