Where did you grow up?
I grew up in China and when I was 15 years old I moved to Singapore for secondary school and junior high school. I undertook my university education in Australia. My last job was as a shop manager for an Australian fresh food mart.
How did you get to your current job position?
I found this job opportunity on the GradAustralia website and applied from there. I have been in my role with DXC Technology for five months.
How did you choose your specialisation?
I chose project management as my specialisation because I have been interested in it since I was in university. My bachelor and master degree studies focused on project management. Release management is the final step of project delivery, so I am glad of the opportunity to gain more in depth knowledge on project management.
What was your interview process like?
I applied close to the due date, so only had one face to face interview. At the time I did not know much about release management, so my interview was quite general. However, I was given a lot of information about the position and the team I would be working with.
What does your employer do?
DXC Technology is an IT services company. I am working in a large Australian federal government account in which my team provide business as usual release management.
What are your areas of responsibility?
In my team we have different shifts. We rotate each week to plan and deploy changes to the customer’s systems. Based on the changes’ deployment windows, we have shifts for weekday, weeknight and weekend planning and deployment.
Can you describe a typical work day?
Every day I start by remotely connecting into the customer’s network. I check emails first and then participate in team meetings to catch up on any urgent or important tasks. The most recent task I worked on was providing support to team members on other shifts to ensure work was covered during team training.
What are the career prospects with your job?
Release management is part of the end phrase of the project delivery. Good release managers know the project and the customer well. It is important to learn as much as you can if you want to be a good project manager.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes. Although it’s good to have some IT background, the well-structured on-the-job training allows people from different backgrounds to be successful. However, if want to be a good release manager, some understanding of IT infrastructure and management is needed.
What would your career be if you weren’t doing what you’re doing now?
If I hadn’t joined the release management team, I wouldn’t know how good DXC’s government account team is and would not have the knowledge or understanding I have gained from my experience working with the team.
What do you love the most about your job?
The thing I love the most is my release management team. Since no two projects are the same, I am often faced with new challenges. However, my team is very supportive and provide good training and explain things well. I also enjoy the moment when changes have been deployed and successfully signed off.
What’s the biggest limitation of your job?
There are shifts where we rotate to support after hours deployment. However, my team is very supportive of my graduate training and only schedule me for business as usual shifts. Therefore, I am able to work in the release team whilst at the same time undertaking my general project management graduate training. My team trust me to work on big and important changes, which involve a lot of responsibilities. This gives me a sense of belonging and the chance to enjoy the achievement when work has been done successfully.
A word to the wise...