Tell us a bit about your interest in web development.
I’ve always wanted to work with computers, but when I was younger I wanted to do game development or game testing. Probably something to do with the number of hours I spent playing video games! This focused my A-levels into a more technical side and in turn my degree. But it wasn’t until placement year at university that I realised I enjoyed web development the greatest. The fact that every industry and area of the world now requires some form of developer. The advancement in the last decade alone of technology has been incredible and hopefully will only continue in this fashion.
Course highlights from your time at Liverpool University?
There are two parts to my time there that stand out. First was the group project in second year, where we got to work in small groups and come up with our own product and follow it through the entire system life-cycle. Our product was a support system for assigning tasks to system engineers. Not only did I get to work with my friends on a project and use skills I had learnt in the past 1.5 years of uni, but I also learnt new skills such as project management, to ensure we were all on time with our tasks.
The second was my placement year at the Walton Centre. It was just so different to university. Being in an actual work environment and seeing that my work was actually being used daily instead of completed for a module and then forgotten. I learnt a lot more in this year than I did in the three spent at university and not only technical skills—project management, ability to communicate and explain concepts and other general skills outside of a software world. I also got to see how a hospital works behind the scenes. I experienced a wide range of things too; developing the system, training, on hand support for the initial release of the project. This was also the reason I decided that web development was the path I wanted to go down.
And the challenges?
Like most students, probably the final year project was the most challenging part of my course. This was a program and a 10,000+ word dissertation. My program was Tetris, which in itself wasn’t too difficult to code and was enjoyable to do. It was the dissertation that followed that was the challenging part. It was a technical spec doc, full user guide, all testing and a report on everything I had done in the past few months rolled into one. The sheer amount of time dedicated to getting it done was a vast difference to anything I had done previously.
You’ve been at interconnect/it for 8 weeks now, what do you like most about the company?
Am I allowed to say the not having to be in until 10 am?! But on a more serious note, the relaxed atmosphere in the office and, even though there is a hierarchy, the fact that everyone sits in the same office. It’s easy to communicate with everyone.
Can you tell us what you’re working on at interconnect/it?
At the moment I’m working on developing an internal CRM system, project named ‘The Thing’. The final, complete idea behind this system is to provide a centralised place for key information for each client project or SaaS product. At the moment, with the first deployment, it lists all organisations and their staff, as well as projects and services we provide for them.
I have also just started working on the initial plan of an events management system, but this is still early days.
What are your future goals and ambitions?
I’m not thinking too far ahead at the moment, what with just getting back from a year away, I just want to take things as they come. I’m enjoying working here and can’t see a reason why that would change. So still working here in the foreseeable future would be a good start.
I also enjoy travelling and would like to go to South America at some point. But that’s a few years away yet.
And lastly, what are your hobbies and interests outside work?
Scuba Diving! I got my licence on my year away and loved it, it’s my favourite activity by far. Skydiving—I started to train to get my licence in my final year at university but didn’t finish in time, so I’m planning to get back into that again in the near future. I also enjoy cycling, gaming and hiking.
Thanks for agreeing to share a bit of your story!
As Jack mentioned, he’s currently involved with two pieces of Research and Development work for us—a Customer Relationship Management System and an Events Management System. Keep your eyes peeled for more information on both of these as we progress further with our development work.
