Intel advertised a work placement when I was in my 3rd year in college and I applied as part of my course. I completed the 1 year placement successfully and returned to college. During my final year Intel contacted me and asked me to come to an interview for a position that became available. I succeeded at the interview and here I am 3 years later.
What's cool?
It's great to work in a Global company like Intel. You get to work with so many different people from all walks of life, experience different cultures and share experiences. There are also opportunities to travel to other countries and work with your foreign team members in their own environment. The great thing about Intel is you are in control of your own career direction. You say where you want to go and Intel will work with you to achieve your goal. You also work with your manager to build your own objectives for each quarter.
Intel is committed to training their staff and there are so many courses that you can complete to build your knowledge in relevant areas and achieve externally recognised certifications. I love how I can work from anywhere at anytime, once I have my laptop and an Internet connection I can work as though I'm at my desk!
When you work in IT, you work in a fast moving, constantly changing, challenging environment. You can apply your skills to any industry worldwide, every company needs some sort of IT. Working in IT means you enable a company to carry out their day to day business.
What particular skills do you bring to your workplace?
Problem solving is probably the biggest skill that is required to work in IT and I've found this skill really useful in my day to day work. Communication skills are very important, particularly since I work in such a global company
Describe a typical day?
I start work at 8 am and finish about 4.30 each day. Every day is different, I set my own challenging objectives each quarter and could be working on different IT improvement projects - all of which will have some element of planning the project, working on some development and testing and validating my work. I also work on issues in the production environments to ensure minimal impact to the business.
What are the main tasks and responsibilities?
Most of the projects I am involved in are improvement projects to increase efficiencies in processes. Depending on my role on the project, I could be involved in writing and developing code or introducing efficiencies into systems.
I also work on issues that are impacting our production environment and resolve them to minimize impact to the business.
What's not so cool?
On occasion, due to the fact that it is a global company, sometimes out-of-hours meetings are required with other teams in other countries. These are kept to a minimum.
What are the main challenges?
Its great working on something when you know how to do it. It's even better when you don't and you can learn how to do it better. Working on the unknown is something that challenges me and you can take great satisfaction once you find the solution. For that reason, it's important to change your role every couple of years, just to keep you on your feet. Working in large organisation like Intel gives you this opportunity.
