Quantium’s focus is on data and people, supporting the growth of talented individuals so that through their skill, data may be used to develop ground-breaking applications.
As a graduate engineer part of wiq (Woolworths and Quantium partnership), I work with an ever-growing team that developed in collaboration with Woolworths on new problems that can be solved using data. This partnership has the engineering team building completely grassroots products that allow us to flex our creative and logical skills, making new concepts functional. Most of my days follow a common pattern of programming, team meetings, learning, code reviewing, lunch and reaching out for assistance (and occasionally the other way round). Getting stuck or having a problem is normal and no one expects me to know everything or perpetually scratch my head. Thankfully, by working with such a helpful team, they are always happy to lend a hand, as they don’t want me to be stuck either. Collaboration is our backbone as it helps us build each other, not just the final deliverable.
Besides programming and designing new tools, there is also the graduate side job. As a graduate, a large part of my day to day is learning. Advancing as a graduate is growing in a wide range, whether that’s understanding the new technologies being used in the project, gaining deeper programming fundamentals knowledge, and even developing better practical skills through training sessions.
I was born and raised in the southern highlands. Still a hometown boy and haven’t found a reason to leave yet, even with the Quantium office being in Sydney.
My entrance into programming was fuelled by my love and fascination with video games, creating simple 2D roguelikes at the start of high school. The IT class my school offered were never really coding focused, but when the opportunities came, I leapt at them. Whether that was making a simple website with Javascript, LEGO Mindstorm robot battles, basic app design, all those tasks laid the foundation for what was to be my career. During my HSC years, I managed to turn my design and technology subject into essentially a programming class, as Software Design and Development wasn’t offered.
After the HSC, University felt like a breath of fresh air, finally following my passion. During my penultimate year, Quantium was the company I felt had the most to offer for a summer internship. After (thankfully) being accepted, the program gave awesome experiences through its collaboration and practical tasks. The projects that Quantium had us work on felt important and even now are used and continued to be built upon, becoming more than just a minimum viable product. During that final (tough COVID) year of university, I had the biggest grin when I received the graduate program acceptance call. A year later and I still couldn’t be happier.
No doubt, of course. Quantium is founded on diverse people and ideas. No two engineers follow the exact same career or learning path. Quantium’s focus is more on your problem-solving capability, rather than knowing a specific language like java, python or c#. An eagerness to constantly learn and improve is paramount, as Quantium understands the ever-changing landscape of software engineering and encourages development. Different backgrounds help widen the possibilities, by providing new insights and experiences. If anything, Quantium loves diverse backgrounds as it fuels better designs and solutions.
It has got to be the pool table and Friday arvo drinks. The perfect way to conclude the working week is by having some fun with the team. Even throughout COVID and lockdowns that culture has flowed down into creating slack channels for Friday Among Us, Scribble.io, Gartic phone and a whole slew of different fun games and activities that anyone in the company thought of.
Also, the support groups and communities. Whether that be the mental health team, the women’s network, or the LGBTQ+ community. These initiatives and communities have encouraged so many people and helped build a positive workplace.
With Quantium’s exponential growth in the retail data space and expansion into additional areas, it’s commonplace to find developers stretched across different projects and resourcing to be spread out. All the projects across the entire business need people with unique skill sets, meaning there are times when you’ll have to juggle or completely switch work items very Adhoc like. This was most noticeable being part of a newer team, having most team members requiring shifts back to their prior team to fix or update what they were doing.