Dominic Spurling, IT Director
As a localization partner, our work goes far beyond pure translation. Alongside our language expertise, we’re passionate about using technology to help our clients work smarter at every stage of the localization process. Our IT Director, Dominic Spurling, explains the key role our tech experts play in our clients’ success, and how Rubric combines unique tools with the human touch for outstanding results.
Hi Dom, can you tell us a bit about your role, and how it contributes to client success?
As Rubric’s IT Director, I manage a team that’s split between Operational IT and IT Development.
The Operational side supports our Production team which runs client projects. Operational IT focus on configuring localization pipelines to make the whole process as smooth as possible for clients. It’s about reducing manual effort to make the entire workflow more efficient, from the way they create and update their assets, to translation and publishing. By automating various steps in the pipeline, we can save clients time and money, improve quality, and create a seamless experience.
The Development team build our own internal tooling, such as RubricAnt and RubricCatcher. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, so we build tools that are unique to Rubric and meet specific client needs.
We’re always thinking strategically about how we can work smarter for our clients. Over the years, we’ve identified common themes in terms of what our clients need tools to do. So, rather than building lots of separate tools, my aim is to standardize things as much as possible and create tools that are reusable and configurable. That’s in line with Rubric’s principles of minimizing wasted effort and reducing cost. Through technology It makes me really happy when I hear from clients’ dev teams that we’ve made it so easy for them to integrate translated strings, and that they can build in two minutes rather than spending hours or even days resolving issues before a release.
Although there is this split in the team, we do all get involved in different things. We know what everyone is working on and can all step into each other’s shoes to an extent, which makes us more flexible and agile for clients.
What expertise and skills do you bring from your previous roles?
I actually have a family connection to Rubric, so I spent some holidays working here while I was a student. I was interested in science and studied chemistry at university, but my experience here gave me a good introduction to business IT. That led to me providing support and consultancy to businesses on the IT systems they needed. I then moved into software development and ended up managing a large team of developers. When I eventually came back to work at Rubric, I had a breadth of experience that I use every day.
It’s a technical role, but Rubric is human-at-the-core. Can you explain how we tailor our approach for different clients?
A lot of language service providers focus purely on the translation process—receiving text in one language, and returning it in another. At Rubric, we focus more on individual client needs. We spend time really getting to know them and understanding the way they work, how they create and manage their assets, and how they can improve them.
Our clients often have a lot on their plates just managing their content development lifecycle in one language. Adding in localization can quickly create chaos if you don’t have the right processes in place. Over the years, we’ve helped many clients in distress and that’s shaped the development of our tools. By standardizing wherever possible, they keep things simple and focus human attention on the most common problem areas.
Building strong relationships with our clients means we’re able to provide solutions that really help them. Our brilliant project managers are the client’s first point of contact, but I regularly join client calls to discuss technical requirements or speak with developers.
What do you like about working for Rubric?
The main thing is the people—they’re all great to work with. It’s a really nice, supportive culture where everyone knows each other, and I enjoy working in a multilingual environment. I’m really proud that we’re employee-owned now, but in many ways I think it just reflects who we were already—people at Rubric have always had that sense of ownership for their work and the drive to keep improving.
And what do you like to do when you’re not at work?
My main hobby is sailing, and in my spare time I can usually be found at my local sailing club near Edinburgh!