Area of work

Technology

Studied

Master of Engineering (Electronics and Communications), University of Warwick

Joined

Aug 2007

Working in

London

I work in Fixed Income deal capture IT. Whenever someone makes a trade they enter it onto our system and I look after everything that happens after that from an IT perspective. This includes updating the databases and sending their trading positions wherever they need to go within the business

I did a lot of programming during my university course, but also took some Finance courses and found them interesting, so I thought I'd like a career where I could combine my interests. I started researching careers in investment banking and that's when I came across BNP Paribas. The thing that immediately appealed to me was that you get a real job straightaway, that you don't spend ages training. I had just spent 4 years doing a very technical degree and didn't want to start another long period of studying. I'd also taken a year out during university and had enjoyed working, so was keen to get back to work.

I joined in August, it took a week or so to get familiar with things but then after that I was straight into working on bug fixes and programming. I've also been working on a few different projects outside my normal work, development projects. One of them is changing the functionality of how one of our databases works. Formerly people used to access replicated data, rather than directly accessing the original data. I've worked out a way to access the original data, so the system now works more efficiently and the errors that were occurring during the duplication process are reduced. Because we work as part of a global system here, my database changes will be enacted throughout all our offices around the world. I'll help with the release process to ensure that everything goes smoothly. It's great to be able to do extra projects like this, I find doing my own development work very interesting and it allows me to use my creative side as well.

I really like the fact that I'm learning a lot about programming and a lot about business. I'm not too sure which path I'd like to head along, either as a developer or a project manager, but I'd definitely like to keep learning more about the business and finance side of things. I've seen many of my colleagues move internally, to different areas of the business so I know that whatever I decide there will be plenty of opportunities and more responsibility.

My job is demanding and I have deadlines to meet and things to manage but my managers appreciate that I have a life outside the office. That seems to be a common attitude here, maybe it's a European thing but there's a big emphasis on work/life balance.

I think that for any student who's interested in early responsibility and a balanced career where you have the opportunity to move internally and really raise your level of knowledge, BNP Paribas is a good choice.