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CSC DETAILS
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In March 1999 I was in the enviable position of choosing between 4 offers of employment on graduate IT schemes from The Halifax, Peugeot, CSC and Softlab. I opted for CSC's offer with their Financial Services Group based in Camberley. Although I would have to wait 6 months until September 1999 for this job to start(not uncommon for a graduate scheme), I was impressed by CSC's commitment to training and by the work that I would be doing.
In the meantime, I did a couple of temporary assignments and started reading-up on object-oriented theory for the forthcoming training. Sadly, I received a letter from CSC 3 weeks prior to the start-date stating that the graduate scheme had been withdrawn due to a "strategic business decision".
In a twist of fate, I was then contacted by CSC in Romford asking whether I would like to attend an interview for a similar position with them. Obviously I leapt at this opportunity and was consequently offered the job.
In October 1999, I started as a Trainee Programmer on CSC's outsourced IT services account with JP Morgan Flemming Asset Management(then known as Save and Prosper). My first role was Error Coordinator on a software installation project. It was my responsibility to track all errors generated by the 3 testing teams during the testing phases of the project, and to ensure that these errors were subsequently allocated to the correct party and resolved. I had a daily meeting with the client's testing managers to give them a progress report. I was also responsible for installing new releases and patches onto servers. This was a great introduction to the business and I forged some lasting relationships with some of the client staff.
I went on to join the Intranet team where I worked as a developer for 18 months. I worked in a team developing database-driven intranet applications for both CSC and the client.
All applications were hand-coded using HTML, DHTML, JavaScript and MivaScript. Everything ran on Windows NT servers and used flat DB4 database files. As my first hands-on programming role, I was given a lot of responsibility; With minimal supervision, I had to teach myself the new technologies required and put them to work very quickly, contributing to ongoing projects. As the team was small, I participated in all aspects of the work, including gathering user requirements, producing estimates, coding(front and back end), testing, presenting demonstrations to the client, installation and ongoing support. As my knowledge grew, I was given more complex assignments until I eventually worked independently on a Call Centre Absence System which is in use today in JPMF's Romford Call Centre.
In my last few months there I was appointed Intranet administrator in charge of changes, databases, permissions, training, user guides and continuity. I continued in my capacity as a developer and fitted my new responsibilities around my development work.
Similarly to my role at Securicor, I found myself juggling several concurrent responsibilities and meeting tight deadlines. It was excellent experience.
At the end of June 2001, CSC made me redundant and I have been trying to find my next position ever since.
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