Mark studied Electronic Engineering with Music at Glasgow before joining Sky's prestigious Technology Graduate Programme. He has just started his second year of the programe and here he shares his experiences.
I wanted to find a graduate scheme that would give me both the training opportunities and flexibility. I came across the Sky Technology Graduate Scheme while searching for graduate roles and although it wasn’t one of which I had previously been aware, after looking into it more, I decided it was definitely worth applying. A few weeks later and I was a new Sky technology graduate!
The idea with the rotations is to get a grounding in everything – Testing, Development, Support and Analysis. So far I’ve done testing, support and more recently I’ve gone into an environment management role which is totally different from any work I have done previously. While I have enjoyed the more technical side of problem solving and fixing things when broken from support – getting to know a totally different role gives me the opportunity to expand my knowledge base on different subjects.
Some people have this kind of stigma about grad schemes – “oh you’re a graduate, they’ll give you all the boring stuff to do.” However, in my experience, I’ve always been treated as a real asset and an important team member.
Every day I’ve been learning something new. The time I spent at university was useful but looking back it was more for developing how to learn rather than what you’re actually learning. Whereas when you’re here in Sky, you know it’s all relevant and actually being used. Sometimes I felt at university, “I’ll never use this, I don’t need to bother too much” but still realising that the method of learning is important.
It is certainly different, being in full time work as opposed to education, however the previous experience helps in the adjustment. The seven week training was itself like a small university course with a lot of information to get in! We trained down in West London. We’ve kept in touch since to find out what we’ve all been up to and this has been a great way to network and get to know about different parts of Sky and how they work.
Highlights and Proud Moments
The people. It’s quite a social place to work. It’s not like you come in just to go home again. It’s all about meeting new people, and it’s a massive workplace with so many different areas, so it’s a good place to do it. I’ve even organised football games between departments and a table tennis tournament.
There are so many different projects, so many opportunities to learn different things. I chose Sky over other options also because of the size of the company.
It’s a really open place to work. And I remember hearing this myself – and it really rings true now – what you put in, you’ll get back out. So if you put a lot in, you’ll get the rewards. I think it’s easy in a big company to shy away and not get involved but getting stuck in means you really get to have a great experience.