National Coding Week: Hear from our Analysts
As part of National Coding Week, we've been asking some of our analysts about their day-to-day work with coding and if they have any advice for those looking to learn coding themselves.
Today we hear from Amy, Operations Analyst in Customer Outcome Strategy.
Tell us a little bit about your role at Vanquis.
I’m currently working as an Operations Analyst within the Customer Outcome Strategy team. My main focus is remediation and supporting the Customer Solutions Team who remediate Customers where we have found processes that may have failed.
How do you use coding in your role at Vanquis?
My role involves coding the journey of these refunds from segmentation of the accounts (whether they are active, closed, debt sold etc) to ensure they are refunded correctly to collating the monetary and letter files which are inserted into our Datawarehouse before being sent to the Customer and running various controls against the populations to ensure we are mitigating any risks.
What led you into a job in coding?
When I joined Vanquis my first role was in Customer Services - at that point I didn’t know what coding was and had never had any experience in it. I moved into a role in Monetary Operations which involved reconciliation, as well as improving my Excel skills this is where I began to learn the basics of SQL from getting involved in small projects . I took a real interest in SQL and was keen to learn more so applied for a job in Operations Development as an analyst and was lucky enough to be given the opportunity, from there it was a lot of learning on the job with help from my peers and attending courses and I’ve now worked in various analytical roles across Operations.
What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
For me currently, the most rewarding part of my job is knowing I am contributing to refunding our Customers and doing the right thing where we know a process may have failed or not lived up to our usual standard.
What was the hardest part about learning?
Learning to code reminds me of learning a new language - I found this difficult at first as it doesn’t come as second nature to me. To help me remember different syntax I found saving useful code down extremely helpful as I could always go back and refer to it later when I couldn’t quite remember which bit of code I needed to use.
I would also say one of the hardest parts about learning to code was knowing where to find things in the Datawarehouse, there are so many different data sources that at first it can be over-whelming but after a while you do get the hang of where to look or know who the best person to ask is.
Are there any tools or resources you would recommend?
One of the tools I used when I first started coding was a website called W3 Schools: https://www.w3schools.com/. It has various different tutorials for all kinds of coding programmes and also lets you practice with examples.
Top tips?
Never be afraid to ask for help from other analysts – usually if there’s some data you are trying to find or you’re not sure the best way to code something someone has done something similar before and everyone is always willing to help.
