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Employee Profile: Musawar Shahid - Software Engineer

By Alfa

“Having studied Economics and with 6 months left of my Masters in Finance, I realised that the finance industry was well underway with its integration with the world of technology. I started to explore opportunities that would allow me to gain exposure to both these industries. Alfa was a company that situated nicely within these two industries, and assured me that even though I did not have a background in tech, it would not be an issue as they would train me in Java and other skills necessary for the role.

The graduate scheme puts you through a great training program and has you working on Alfa’s codebase almost directly from the start. So not only was I getting paid to be trained up, but I was also making changes, under supervision, that improved Alfa’s code within the first few weeks of being there, which built up my confidence in my coding ability.

Following the training program, I joined the Implementation stream as an Analyst where I was working on a project with a client that was gearing up to go-live. I was particularly drawn to Alfa as a company because of the fluidity they offered between their roles, and after spending about a year in Implementation, I moved over to Product Engineering as a Software Engineer.

I enjoy working at Alfa because they have an incredible work-life balance and they take care of us. During the pandemic, Alfa held (virtual) social events organised by our fantastic events team which kept us going. On top of that, there are many opportunities to grow and try new things; I’ve just completed running a work experience program which was awesome! The people at Alfa are nothing short of amazing, everyone treats a problem like it’s their own and are willing to help.”