Tell us about your current job. Describe what you do on a typical day.

I work as a senior data engineer with One Savings Bank. We are a mortgage specialist lender and have multiple products that we offer to our customers. Although we were incorporated as a bank in 2009, we have been in business for 100 years. We have multiple legacy systems through which we offer various products and this means we have to deal with multiple data sources. My team brings all this data to one single data platform, transform it and derive various reports from it to cater to various internal customers. Our team delivers this to other teams including Treasury, Risk, Marketing, Lending, Savings, etc. We work on tools like Azure, SSMS, SSRS, Power BI, Git, etc on a day to day basis to achieve this.

What were the best things about your course?

For me this would be the depth of the knowledge each of my professors possessed. It was important for me to have great guidance from experts and all the teachers including my project guide had in-depth subject matter expertise.

How do you feel your degree helped you get a job after graduation?

I started working even before I graduated. I was working as a part-timer with OSB since Jan 2022. I had the confidence to apply for the role and was brave enough to give the interview even though I had just completed one semester. Being in the university has certainly influenced me to make bold choices.

What skills from your degree do you think you use most in your current job?

A few of the skills I gained from university that I still apply at my job are: research skills, interpersonal skills, analytical skills, eye for detail and project management skills

What are your top tips for securing a job in the United Kingdom or your home country?

You should have the necessary skill set required for the job that you are applying. You should always keep it polished and your CV should be well formatted. Based on the role for which you are applying, you should highlight those skills you posses more in your CV for that role. 

What advice would you give to current and prospective students looking to work in your sector?

It would be a good idea to have a combination of multiple skills rather than focusing entirely on one. As a data engineer I still look at project management, interpersonal skills and general banking regulations as these are skills that would set me apart from the rest. 

What advice would you give to current students studying on your degree programme?

Make some great friends. This will eventually help you in enhancing your network. Remember, you are not just in a class of people. You are potentially also in a class of future data scientists.