Academy Q&A: Hannah Royal

Name: Hannah Royal   

Age: 24

How did you hear about the Infinity Works (IW) Academy programme?

I met Danielle Cooper, Infinity Works’ Academy manager, at the Leeds Digital job fair and later again at a careers event at my university.

What attracted you to apply for the IW Academy?

After studying at university for four years I wanted to join a company with a training scheme to translate my academic skills into real-life industry skills. I felt the IW Academy was a great opportunity because we covered everything I needed to know to become a full stack developer. I then went straight into working on an account where I could start to make a difference.

What were you doing at the time?

I was in my masters year of a degree in Computer Science at The University of York.

What were your career ambitions (and how did IW fit into this)?

Leaving university, my career ambitions were to get into the world of development and start building my technical skills solving real life problems. I wanted to join a consultancy so there were many projects I could learn about and lots of people with experience whom I could learn from.

What did you enjoy most about your time with the Academy?

I really enjoyed learning full stack development, since I’d only had experience with certain layers of the stack before. For our final project we created a full application, including the user interface, the back-end functionality, and a deployment process for deploying the whole thing to an infrastructure we had architected on AWS (which I’d never done before!). It was really exciting!

What did you learn about becoming a successful consultant?

For the final project we worked with product owners from the ‘customer’, and were asked to provide them with an application. During the process we learnt about how to manage requirements and ourselves to deliver the application they needed within the deadlines given. It involved organising team structures, building up communication, and taking the time to figure out our top priorities. It’s very similar to what we help our clients do, so it gave us a taste of being a consultant.

How have you found your first few months as a consultant at Infinity Works?

My first year so far has been great! I’ve been working on a small account in a blended team with developers from the customer. I’ve been supported by the other Infinity Works employees in getting started with picking up and completing tickets, and I’ve slowly worked my way up to running retros and organising whiteboarding sessions to talk about topics, as well as demonstrating my work in show-and-tells.  

What words of advice would you give to someone starting this year’s Academy?

It can be very easy to get into an Academy bubble, so make sure to go to company-wide social events too and start getting to know the people you could be working with on account or that you’ll see around! Also, if you have any free time during the Academy, you should look through the Slack channels to read some interesting techie stuff, and ask questions about the technologies you’re interested in.