Job Responsibilities
My current position is as an IT Consultant specialising in
software testing. I came to software testing from a background
as a Network Administrator and then a C++ developer, one day I
was roped into coding some automated tests and pretty much got
stuck testing. My next position after this was as test manager
for a US company based in New Zealand, but management wasn't
really my cup of tea so I moved to consulting. Consulting is
great for people with a low boredom threshold, it's like being a
permanent contractor. Each project is usually only 3 months long
tops, some are longer, some are shorter - you don't have time to
get bored in a role which can sometimes happen when you are
working on the same piece of software for 5 years.
My job is extremely varied, I can often be working on up to 5
projects at one time - which can be confusing switching
between .NET and UNIX. My major responsibilities are in the
areas of creating estimates for customers to let them know how
much and how long it will take to test a certain software
product. This is quite a time consuming task as it invovles
reading through piles of documentation to find out what will be
involved in the development process - in a way, you are also
finding out information for the developers to assist them with
their estimates. Most of my daily tasks are spent working on
Microsoft based products, however, I have now been given a 4
month project that is MAC based, it's been interesting swapping
to using a MAC full time. In addition to my main MS & MAC roles,
I also help out with other projects who may need my help for a
few hours with UNIX or SQL based projects. If we get any down
time then this is spent doing online training courses. My
employer also contributes $4000 per annum towards classroom based
training courses.
There is a drawback to working on all these projects - doing the
timesheets. We have to log every 15 minutes of our time, each
project might have 10 different codes to log against, a code for
documentation, a code for system test, meeting with the clients
and so on and so forth. It takes about an hour a week to fill in
the time sheets. It's not so bad once you get the hang of it,
filling in as you go, but often you are so busy that you forget
to even make a note of what hours went where so time sheets can
start to become a little inventive by Friday afternoon. As we
are billing the customers we need to ensure we are as accurate as
possible with our timesheets.
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Job Requirements
Most of my education in the area of computing has been self
taught, I was one of those geeks who locked themself in a room at
15 with an Atari and came out at some point in my 20's. My A
levels were all humanities based, English, Theatre Studies,
Psychology. I sat computing courses to fill in time as it was
fun. My initial exposure to programming was with QBasic - I
decided to re-write Gorillas to make it more fun (did I mention
the geek word?). I sat the GCSE computer science the first year
it was available and came top of the college - not bad for a few
months work, my lecuturer tried to persuade me to give up the
acting and move more to computers but drama college beckoned.
After college I took various jobs, all involving computers and
generally ended up being the hardware/software/network
maintenance person as everyone else was scared of computers. In
my late 20's whilst working as a network admin (NT & Oracle -
what a nice mix), I figured it might be an idea to do that
computing degree I'd put off at the age of 18. I was really
nervous my first day, I thought that I'd be in a room full of
people who were like me at 18, people who had already been
programming since they were kids, already knew how to build a PC
from scratch in under 5 mins (ok slight exaggeration) - I was in
for a horrible shock. I wanted to do this degree to learn new
programming skills to bring me up to speed with current practices
so that I could move from Network Admin to Development but no...
lesson one on the degree, how to save to floppy disk, how to use
the mouse, how to open MS Word - to say I was upset was an
understatement. I was given credits based on work experience and
professional qualifications that gave me a pass on years 1 and 2
in the first 3 months of doing the course, I was also helping the
lecturer teach people, especially when with some of the modules
my knowledge was more up to date. At the time of taking the
course I'd been running my own web & graphic design company for 3
years, was working full time as a network admin and they were
trying to tell me how to open MS Word. Not really what you
expect from a degree. Needless to say, at the end of year 2 I
didn't bother to continue. Instead, I took professional courses
that specialised in OO, UML, Visual Studio C++, COM, API
programming and then went on a did several courses in programming
across different networks. I also qualified as a Clearcase
multisite administrator. The professional courses, in particular
the Learning Tree courses, were by far more useful than the
degree. Not having a degree hasn't hampered me in any way
whatsoever getting work, nor has it affected my salary.
The most useful courses I've taken that help me with my current
role are: English Language & Literature A Levels, Learning Tree
Visual C++, NT Server & Workstation Admin, Perl, Unix Shell
Scripting, SQL programming, Javascript, XML. I am now teaching
myself C# as my employer requires me to work as a cross over
between the test and development departments.
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Uppers
It's great to be working on many different projects, there is very little time
to get bored.
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Downers
There are quiet times of the year when companies do not want to
start new projects. During this time there is a lot of thumb
twiddling going on and it can get quite boring. But we know that
not far away will be so much work that we won't know what to do
with ourselves.
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Lifestyle
As long as I work approx. 40 hours a week, my boss doesn't really mind what time
I come in, or how long I go for lunch. Some people here start at 11am and work
through quite late, personally I aim to start round about 9am. The gym is right
next door to work so that is great and most lunchtimes are spent exercising,
occasionally a game of tennis is organised. As our company are in two locations
in NZ, there are occasional trips down to Wellington (about an hour on a plane)
which makes the week a bit different. Synergy is quite a sociable company, we
have regular BBQs, beer-o-clock on Friday (though this is quite a Kiwi thing), a
group of us go climbing every week and groups of people get together to do
different external activities. The dress code is smart casual, so no jeans,
shorts, flip-flops etc... we have customers coming to the offices on a regular
basis so we need to ensure we look professional, however, this doesn't mean
wearing a suit & tie.
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Compensation
Base salary is $64000 + $11000 incentive - you have to get at
least a 3 out of 5 in your quarterly review for your incentive to
be paid, if you get a 4 or 5 out of 5 then you are also eligible
for a bonus at the annual review in April. I received a 4 out of
5 on each review last year so fingers crossed for a bonus. :)
There is an option to join a medical scheme and also a pension
plan, however, Synergy do not contribute to either of these.
Where you save money is in fees and the fact that the medical
plan will cover all pre-existing conditions. Also, the pension
plan is acceptable to UK Pension Providers and as it was a
company scheme it cost me nothing to transfer my pensions across
from the UK (apart from charges at the UK end).
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Advice to Jobseekers
Don't put too much emphasis on having a degree. Working in
computing is more about experience than education. Most of the
best engineers I've come across are not academic people, they are
practical people who have taught themselves to a certain point
and then used educational routes to round off their knowledge.
Yes, a degree is a nice thing to have but it's not necessary,
make sure you have practical experience as well.
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