Joining our brand new tech delivery centre

The first of our new colleagues to join our Bradford tech centre are settling into their new office. A month into their roles, we caught up with Subhani (Data Engineer) and Selvarajah (Scrum Master) about their first impressions and why it’s an exciting time to join…

What was it that first attracted you to join us in the new tech delivery centre in Bradford?

Selvarajah: Firstly, knowing the company’s purpose to help our customers to build their credit score. We have been given an opportunity to build a new culture in the Bradford Delivery Centre to demonstrate how multi-skilled teams across our three offices can help to deliver our 5-year plan in a agile and collaborative environment with no silos.

Subhani: The office is in the city centre and easily accessible from Leeds, which is very good for me. It’s also part of the well-known brand Provident Financial Group.

A month in to your new roles, what are your impressions so far?

Selvarajah: My journey as a new colleague was so smooth. Our induction with Jo-Anne from HR was great, since day one she’s helped us on so many things. After that we were assigned a ‘buddy’ for us to ask any questions, having help from them has been really good whilst we’re settling in. What impressed me the most was having the chance to listen to our customer calls in the first day as you don't get this opportunity that much elsewhere.

Subhani: The people are all very nice and approachable, whether that’s the HR team, leaders, IT support team, the CIO and more. There’s no bossism so I’m very happy to see this culture. On day one, we were all provided brand new laptops with all software installed. I’m also impressed with the learning culture and that we are encouraged to invest 10% of our time in improving our skills. The customer call listening really helped me understand how our customers are onboarded and how our customer service teams work.

What’s exciting about joining this team?

Subhani: This is a brand-new team in Bradford along with existing Data Engineering teams in the London and Chatham offices. We have a lot of technologies to explore, especially on Azure cloud.

Selvarajah: As a newly formed team across different offices, we need to get to know each other and find out the best way forward for us to work as team that delivers value to our customers/end-users frequently! It can be challenging but that is what made me excited as I like to work in a challenging environment. I can't wait to see at least one fully functional scrum team in the Bradford Delivery Centre as soon as possible.

What are the key priorities for the next couple of months?

Selvarajah: To start with it’s getting the know the business, the projects, our internal applications and the third-party services we use to get a clear picture of what we do.

Subhani: We’re developing skills to support Azure cloud production issues, which should be rolled into production next month. Also developing monitoring dashboards/alerts/metrics for existing cloud applications.

A big focus will be building the new team, what do you think is important to you?

Selvarajah: I think basic qualities we should expect from a team member are that they have an open mind on new ways of working and continuous learning in a collaborative environment where there is no place for ego.

Subhani: It’s about adopting an open culture which allows the team members to express their thoughts and share their knowledge and ideas without any hesitation. We’re looking for responsible individuals who can share and care for the team’s delivery along with their own deliveries.

We’re looking for a number of engineers to join us in this brand-new team and work across a number of disciplines.
It's a fantastic opportunity to be involved in shaping our tech future, with the potential for great career progression.
Check out all of our current vacancies here.