Video produced by Influence Media
Any conversation about tech in Hull would almost certainly include the name Sauce.
The software development company has been a local success, growing from 4 founders collaborating in co-working to a team of almost 40 people, based in their suitably colourful offices at C4DI Hull.
It all began in 2016 with John Polling and Jim Wardlaw formalising their existing working relationship and bringing on ‘the two Matt’s’, Weldon and Gibson, to complete a formidable team of talented individuals. At the time they were working from the C4DI Beta space on Queen Street, having been members from the very early days.
“We kind of just rolled the dice and thought, let’s see how this goes,” says John, speaking to us from one of the spaces in Sauce’s large office. “It’s been a bit of a crazy journey.”
As part of their core software consultancy business, they’ve worked with the likes of Nestlé, GXO, Ideal Heating, Siemens Gamesa and more. The team, which includes a variety of tech and non-tech roles, also now includes trainees from local technical college, Ron Dearing UTC.
It’s fair to say they’ve built a successful tech company in the heart of Hull, and are now providing genuinely exciting opportunities for the next generation of local talent. It was interesting to hear from John, who is CTO, about how the company has changed and why Hull is still a great place to do business.
He’s also well placed to discuss recent trends such as the use of AI and how companies are adopting remote and hybrid working. Read on for his thoughts on that.
How Sauce have changed over the years
Initially, the goal was simple; “set up a business where the four of us can work on exciting projects.”
But being in C4DI can change your perspective. “Because of the opportunities available to us within C4DI, collaborating with different people, and speaking to the likes of Siemens Gamesa and Ideal heating, our eyes widened a little bit and we realised we can do a bit more with this.
They brought on employee number one, who is still with the company today and have experienced steady growth since then. John is proud of the culture they’ve created and suggests it’s a place they would have wanted to work in when they started.
As far as the direction of the business, the main focus is now “how we can productise some of our solutions, so we can help clients get there faster.” Whilst much of the work they’ve done is bespoke to the needs of each organisation, they’ve undoubtedly produced software and platforms that could help multiple organisations.
For Ideal Heating, the UK boiler manufacturer, they built an IoT platform for their whole boiler infrastructure. The Internet of Things involves connecting everyday items to the internet to increase connectivity and functionality and it’s popping up everywhere.
Not only did they build an app that would allow users to control their boiler remotely, but there is potential for innovation to continue. “From that project we've built this large platform where we collect huge amounts of data about these boilers. [Ideal] can find patterns in that data to understand what more they can do to improve the boilers and increase efficiency.”
The use of machine learning is another area the business is focusing on. “We're looking at how we can be more efficient within our roles here at Sauce. Especially on the developer side of things there's a really good opportunity to use machine learning tools, such as Copilot or ChatGPT, to be more efficient.”
They’re clearly open to exploring the big topic on everyone’s lips right now. As CTO of a leading tech company, we were right in thinking John might have some thoughts on the topic.
Stop calling it Artificial Intelligence
First things first, we need to stop calling it AI, according to John.
“I really hate the term AI, if I'm honest… it's not intelligence, it's machine learning. That's a key thing. It's not like the machine is just instantly intelligent and can start talking or coming up with all the correct answers.” Rather, tools like ChatGPT are simply formulating an answer from a pool of information or data. They learn as they go. How accurate that information is and therefore how reliable these tools are, is a valid concern, but perhaps a discussion for another day.
Generally speaking, he is optimistic about using these tools to our advantage. “Obviously machine learning has been around for a long time, but the explosion of tools like ChatGPT has opened everyone's eyes to it. There are going to be some huge opportunities coming out of that for lots of people.”
As mentioned above there are gains to be made around efficiency. “It's not going to be the case where people lose jobs because of it. The question will be, 'how can I be more efficient with these extra tools?', ‘how can I find a solution quicker?’, and that's the way to look at it from a tech point of view.”
“Beyond that, there's huge scope for the tech to be continually changing. And it's an ever-growing sector. There's not going to be less tech jobs going around, there's going to be more and more jobs available.”
Despite that enthusiasm he does admit “there's a lot of noise [on the subject], and you kind of have to filter it out and wait for everyone to calm down and then look at what areas it can be used in.”
It’s a helpful perspective on what is undoubtedly an exciting area, if a little concerning for some.
Hull’s tech credentials
Sauce’s success is good news for Hull. But it turns out Hull is good news for a tech company, despite the general shift towards remote working.
He recognises the post pandemic working environment has made things more competitive for companies, with those in larger cities now realising they can pinch talent from pretty much anywhere. And he’s certainly not against working from home. “There are some real strengths to it. Obviously, people who've got families can still do the school run etc. It is important for people to have that flexibility. We have Engineers that are in the office most days, and we have some that never come in because it doesn't work for them and that's fine.”
But, he says, “some companies are returning to the idea of having more people local to their business. It definitely makes things a bit easier when it comes to pulling people into the office every so often or having a good team culture.” Sauce has generally stuck to that model throughout and as it happens, they’re “very happy with the local talent that we’re getting.”
Regardless of where you work, having good internet is a major plus and John also praises the broadband provision in Hull. Regardless of your opinion on the provider, he says, “you must accept it is a great connection that we get [from KCOM]. It's stable, it's fast, it’s pretty much always there for you.”
Growing talent and companies
And as for some of their talent, Sauce are indebted to another local institution. “The other thing that is really good for us as a business is having close ties with Ron Dearing,” which he says, “I can’t praise highly enough.”
The college, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, has proven to be a hot bed for developing talented youngsters and Sauce have taken full advantage. “It's bringing out some really good young adults who can adjust to a work environment very quickly and very professionally but are also technically very capable… within a few weeks, they were committing code to production quality projects.” It's an exciting prospect for the future and seems like a worthwhile investment for a company like Sauce.
We may be biased of course, but you can’t mention the tech credentials of Hull without bringing up C4DI. Fortunately, we didn’t need to pressure John into talking about that. It was where Sauce was born after all. And a lot of their work has come from the network.
“Our first client came from working with one of the other members. And since then, doors have been opened with the likes of Siemens Gamesa working closely with C4DI. That was our second client.” They’re now working with fellow members Rubicon who specialise in regulatory compliance and are scaling up rapidly.
As well as building a strong portfolio from C4DI connections there’s also opportunities to use and work with service based companies like Influence Media and TH3 Design.
“It is a really good community here. You can go to other tech centres around the UK in Leeds or Manchester for example and you don't quite see that same level of collaboration that you see here, which I think is a massive selling point to C4DI.”
Even their work, with companies like Nestlé and GXO, on solving logistics problems with good quality software, is a collaborative endeavour with clients. “Everyone gets the most out of it when you've got everyone in the room, working through the problems together.”
For all the talk of machines and intelligence, it’s clear humans are still running the show.