Meet our Academy Consultants – Harrison

We’re proud of the Ten10 Academy’s ability to give people the opportunity they need to kickstart a promising career in tech. Take Harrison, for example, who came to us in 2024 with just a little development experience. Since then, he’s completed specialist training and he’s using multiple languages every day. Here’s Harrison to take you through his client experience so far:

How do you feel you’ve transitioned from the Ten10 Academy to your client work?

I’ve transitioned quite well. I think especially the soft skills in the Academy training have put me in a great position. The client that I’m with does consulting, so having to do public speaking and be confident when engaging with stakeholders is something that’s really, really important and I think that the Academy has drilled the soft skills that really count when it comes to consulting.

Take us through your placement and tell us what client teams you’ve worked with

I can’t get into specifics on teams, but I do work with a consultancy company. I’m on a long-term project, and that’s to do with software development. So I’ve been responsible for front-end development, software testing, and stakeholder management through that placement, dealing with vendors that they use and representing that company as well. It’s been really interesting and I’ve had to wear so many different hats – I’ve loved it!

What parts of the Ten10 Academy training have been most useful in your placement?

I think being selected for the additional dev training. I don’t think I’d be where I am without that. That was really, really useful and Peter as a teacher is one of the best you’ll ever have. The software testing is done on a daily basis. I use Postman, which is a tool that I learned about during the Academy training, but I think generally the Academy has put me in a really good position to be able to pick up anything when asked.

What is a normal working day or week for you?

We have a daily stand-up with the project that I’m on. We have a dev huddle, which is more like a targeted conversation around the specific dev problems that we’ve got that would go over the heads of most other people in the team. And then from there it’s sort of a juggling act of doing the development work for the client and then going back to my other client and doing tertiary work, secondary work, like making presentations that we’re going to be showing to the wider team. I have meetings with the wider team and also meetings with my own cohort of people that joined the company at the same time as me, and we’re all really close. There are others from Ten10 as well that I’m still really close with, whom I see in the office every week. There are a lot of plates spinning all at once!

What technology tools, frameworks, and processes have you gained experience with since starting your client work?

Luckily, I use a lot of tools that I had exposure to within the training which is really valuable. Postman, for example, Selenium, doing things with SQL and servers and databases, all of that stuff is stuff that I do daily. It was brilliant to be completely junior and then someone says, “Are you aware of this?” And you’re like, “Yes, I have experience using this already.” So that’s put me in a really good position. Then a lot of C#, HTML, JavaScript and CSS, which the dev academy and the additional training put me in a great position to pick up quickly.

How has your client supported your development?

The client that I work for absolutely loves training, they love development. While I’ve been there, they’ve been very supportive of me getting extra qualifications. The Azure 900 is a fundamental Microsoft certification for working in Azure and they were very keen and pushing me towards getting that, as well as the DP900, which is a more data-focused one. They love LinkedIn Learning, they love Microsoft Learn. I can have a one-to-one whenever my manager is free if I want to have a little chat with him. He’s great, and he loves personal development as well. So, it’s just whatever I make of it, I can get as much done as I want.

What support have you received from Ten10 during your placement?

Absolutely loads. I know Megan and the wellbeing team are only a few key taps away from anything I would need. I’ve been to them for absolutely anything and everything in between. The pressure for exams, bereavement, they’ve been my port of call. We have a delivery manager, Callum, with whom we have recurring meetings, and he’s been really, really useful, and he’s great to talk to. And just anyone from the Academy, if you’ve got any problem, I know I know I can reach out if I need to. Even if I might not have, I’m aware that it’s there, and it’s a really good safety net to have. If the imposter syndrome’s creeping up or anything like that and you’re not quite sure if you’re in the right place, there’s always someone you can talk to and they’ll respond.

Have you received any extra opportunities through your client work?

I’ve had a few days of travel to Sheffield, London, and Manchester. They’ve all been great and it’s been nice to meet different people, especially when you’re working with them in a team; it’s really handy to sort of put a name to a face that isn’t semi-pixelated on a webcam! The opportunity for charity work is always there. Someone else from Ten10 and I ran an Earth Day litter pick at our client: we organised a litter pick to go around the local area of the office and I think we got something like 15 bags of garbage. We also did a cleanup of an invasive plant species that was in a nearby park called Japanese Knotweed. All you have to do is chuck your hat into the ring and something will come up.