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Leidos Australia

4.1
  • #5 in Defence & aerospace
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Josip

Tell us about your role.

I’m currently working in service delivery, where I’m helping to design, develop, test, deploy, manage and sustain a range of ICT services.

Currently, I’m working on writing a detailed design to deploy and configure a piece of software within our environment in order to help us in delivering service to the best quality for our client. This has included conducting research of products, establishing specifications and defining requirements, and liaising with third parties and security etc. to ensure a suitable fit. It’s quite good because this helps develop my skills as an engineer technically, but it also helps me further develop my time management and project management skills.

We typically have a daily team “stand-up”, which helps align the team across tasks. It’s a great chance to get ideas discussed across people of different disciplines and technical specialities. I find this really productive, and as junior, a great way to learn the formal processes to getting things done.

What do you like most about your role?

Delivering a project that you worked on is definitely the best part of my job. Seeing the utility in your own work, and how you helped coordinate a team to achieve a goal is a great feeling. I lead a minor project with a few moving parts that I delivered on time with full functionality. It feels great to see the system you helped build actually provide real value to the business.

Another part of my job that I enjoy is being surrounded by very bright people. Some are world class and are leaders of their area. They offer daily inspiration and provide great anecdotes and advice. Being around these sorts of people definitely helps get the best out of myself and drives me to perform to their high standards.

What's your background?

I was born, and grew up in, the awesome Canberra. I think growing up with the Discovery Channel on TV sort of rubbed off on me, because I always found numbers and science so interesting (still do!), but I decided that engineering was a great choice for tertiary study.

Before choosing engineering (for four years, honours), I saw that double degrees took five years to complete. The math checked out (37.5% off right?!), so I ended up picking up a degree in IT on the way, which I’m extremely thankful to my previous self for, as I loved it.

Through this time, I developed an appreciation for programming, and it’s sort of developed into a simultaneously constructive and wasteful use of my spare time. I’m now constantly tinkering with electronics, making websites, (trying) to make apps, and 3D printing fidget spinners. My life has truly been enriched. I also started regularly going to the gym, which has positively changed my life tremendously.

I’ve been in my current role since late January 2017. I got it by applying online through the various streams and eventually got an interview, which landed me the job! Believe it or not, what I think sealed the deal, apart from an OK academic record, was answering a question about customer requirements. P.S. if a customer comes to you and wants to change the colour of their mug, tell them you need more time and money.

Words of advice

Go to the gym. That was probably the number one thing I did as a student. It helped me develop huge self-confidence, made me look better, feel better and just be better in general. It instilled in me self-discipline, and taught me lots about health and nutrition that I didn’t know before. I also met many good friends while doing so!

University will teach you few things you couldn’t have learnt by yourself. Most of my time at uni was self-learning, with the support around me. If you want to learn something specific, do external courses, online courses, or just do and fail, repeatedly.

Go to as many social events as possible. You don’t know what new good friend you’ll make or what potential contact you’ll meet.