Meet our Academy Consultants – Samuel Rouse

University can be an incredible, enriching experience for students. But after they graduate, many can find it difficult to get their foot in the door and connect their studies with a career in the field they’re passionate about. Take Sam Rouse for example, who studied Physics at the University of Sussex. Graduating in 2020, he naturally found it difficult to enter a workforce that was rapidly adapting to global circumstances with an unsure future. When things started to return to normal, Sam took action and applied to the Ten10 Academy to kickstart a new career in tech.

Sam joined us in January 2023. Now, he’s thriving in his role as a data analyst for a client in the Public Sector. We wanted to catch up with Sam to hear more about the work he’s doing, the support he receives, the tools and frameworks he regularly uses, and what advice he has for people considering applying to the Ten10 Academy.

How did you find the core training at the Ten10 Academy?

It was good. It was really interesting. Especially for me, because I knew I wanted to get a job in tech and I had a few ideas of what areas I wanted to go into, but I wasn’t sure so it was a pretty good overview of the various areas within tech and what jobs are out there. It’s intense but it’s really rewarding. It’s a lot in eight weeks, but you get a lot from it.

What were you up to when you were thinking of applying? Were you working in another industry or just coming out of university?

I’d actually been out of university for about two years at that point. I was working in a brewery which was okay but leading up to the last six months of working there, I wanted a job in something tech-related because I did a Physics degree at university. COVID hit in my third year so the job market wasn’t great. I was working and I applying around, wanting to do something a bit more related to my degree. I saw Ten10 and thought ‘this sounds great’. I applied and it went really well.

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

I think the transition was quite smooth. It wasn’t too hard. I think because of the nature of the client there was quite a long waiting period to start. There was kind of ‘you got the job’ and then there were a few months to wait so I think in that time it was great for me to upskill and catch up on any relevant skills. I think with the combination of that and my core training, when I started it was fine. No issues, really.

You’ve joined a client in the Public Sector – can you take us through your placement and tell us what client teams you’ve worked with?

I’ve joined the data science and software engineering group. I currently work as a Data Analyst and I’m more junior in the team, obviously. It’s good. It’s really interesting. I think I had done a tiny bit of data stuff before. I had done a Machine Learning course and I’d done a bit of data-related training. But yes, it’s interesting. At the main office in London, there’s a few thousand people. There’s lots of ex-police force, ex-civil servants, that kind of stuff. My group is called Endek and within that there are six teams – data engineers, data scientists, and software engineers. I think there are 13 people in my team now. We’re split between London and Bristol and there are a few in another city.

Could you tell us about what tech either like tools or frameworks or processes you’ve getting your teeth stuck into?

We work in an Agile methodology, so have regular meetings, do sprints, and do retrospectives. A lot of what I do is in Python, which is a programming language to build Machine Learning models, data analysis, and data visualisation. There are libraries within Python called Pandas which are for the manipulation of data into tables.

There’s Scikit-Learn and Keras which are for Machine Learning libraries. On top of that, we use a lot of NeoForge – its graph visualisation technology. That was new to me and it lets you pull out data as graphs and manipulate it. Also, there’s a lot of SQL stuff from working with databases. It’s a lot of stuff which is good. Keeps you on your toes and keeps the work interesting.

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

Probably the most useful areas were the parts on databases. SQL was definitely useful because I still use SQL now. So that was quite useful, having an understanding of how databases work. Also for the Development section, although you learn Java in core training, there are a lot of similarities between Java and Python. Even though they are different languages, there are similarities like data structures, loops, and logic statements.

What is a normal working day or week for you?

I mentioned earlier that we work in an Agile methodology. We normally have a few meetings each week: brief standups in the morning, maybe one earlier in the week to discuss your goals for the week and what you’re going to work on. Later on in the week, you might have one to discuss blockers that you’re having, issues, and how work’s going. And normally on a Friday, depending on the week, it might be a retrospective, it might be a walk the board.

We have a JIRA board which is how you assign workflows. So you go on that, pick up a task, work through it, you leave comments and subtasks as you work through it. I think as I’m more junior, typically in a working week, I will have smaller tasks that I work on my own that are more manageable for me and then for larger tasks, I’ll work with the more senior data scientists and help them with their work.

Has your role and/or responsibilities changed during your time on placement?

As I’ve kind of gone through my role, I think I’m getting slightly more important pieces of work and I’ve taken on some more responsibility, which I think is quite normal because I think I would like to progress to a full-on Data Scientist role in which you’re more involved with building Machine Learning models and using stuff like Hugging Face. So I think as I’m going on I’m getting larger bits of work that are more important, which I really enjoy. I think it’s a good way of learning as well because when you start, you take on smaller pieces of work that aren’t as complex and your hand is held a bit through them. As you get a bit more experience, you get more autonomy to work on stuff on your own, which I quite enjoy.

How has your client supported your development?

Yes, they’re really supportive. I think the first few months I just wanted to work and didn’t want to ask for too much training. And then in one of the first reviews I had with my line manager, she was like, “The work’s really good, but you’re more than welcome to ask for training. You’re junior so feel free to take time out of your day.” Since then, I’ve started doing daily training. At the moment, my mentor has me doing about three to three and a half hours of training a week. So about half an hour a day and on Fridays I normally do an hour and a half which is really good. So they’re really supportive of that which is good.

And do you feel like that’s like helping you to actually work what you learn in training into your day-to-day work a little bit more often?

Samuel Rouse: Yes, which is really good because when you’re learning new technologies, new skills, there’s a technical component to it. You’re training regularly in small doses and applying it to work. And it makes you feel like what you’re learning is a lot more useful as well because you’re applying it directly after learning it.

What support have you received from Ten10 during your placement?

The support’s been great. Various people regularly check in and ask how I’m doing, which is nice. If I’ve ever got any questions, whether it’s technically related or just about taking holiday or whatever, people always get back quickly. They’re really helpful. When I was inquiring about booking exams for AWS tests they were really helpful. They reply quickly. Can’t really ask for much more, which is good.

What would you say to someone considering joining the Ten10 Tech Academy?

I would definitely recommend it. It’s really helpful. They open you up to a world of work. Everyone’s really helpful. You learn loads. It’s definitely a great opportunity.

One thing that I thought was really good about Ten10 was that I had a degree so I was like ‘it will be quite easy for me to get a job’ and you start applying for these jobs that are entry-level and they’d say you need to have three years of experience doing this and that. It’s not really entry-level at that point. Whereas Ten10 was like ‘Come join us. It doesn’t matter what you have. As long as you’re keen to learn and interested, we’ll train you up.’ And I like that kind of ideology. I’m a big fan of that.