I joined Sky because I wanted to be part of something big. It seemed like a place where I could be myself, meet new people and do a job that I’d enjoy. I wanted a role that would challenge me, but which would also encourage me to have fun. The training opportunities were really good as well and I knew this job would help me move in the right direction. Free Sky⁺ was also very tempting.

I’m part of the two-year Technology Graduate scheme, which is made up of placements in Business Analysis, Development, Testing and Operations (although it now also has an SNS placement as well). I’m currently on my Development placement, where I’ve been creating a website for one of Sky’s charity partners. It’s been really interesting to see a project through to completion and know that my work has helped people.

I’ve really enjoyed my training. I spent six weeks in a hotel with the other technology graduates, where we had a tutor that took us through the basics of each of the placements. We were also split up into groups to complete a project that let us put all the new skills we learnt into the context of Sky. There was a real mix of people on the graduate scheme so it was fun getting to know everyone and knowing that we could all rely on each other for help.

Sky’s Make a Difference website has helped me raise nearly £1,000 for cancer research this year. Everyone I know at work was really supportive and got involved in raising the money. Sky helped by matching a lot of the funds. It’s made me believe we can all help make things better and I’ve been really impressed to see a big company give something back.

I wanted a role that would challenge me, but which would also encourage me to have fun. Sky’s Make a Difference website has helped me raise nearly £1,000 for cancer research this year. Learning how to use Adobe Flash was something I always wanted to do. It’s been really exciting making animations and learning ActionScript.

The Customer Closeness scheme was really interesting to get involved with. I’ve been to demonstrations about our competitors and met Sky customers. This has all helped me to see how Sky can make things better for customers and where I fit into these improvements.

I spent the last five months designing and building a website for a charity called Creative Grammar, as part of Sky’s Bigger Picture scheme. It also let me get involved with all of the other projects that Sky work on with Creative Grammar, such has helping create a pilot TV show.

Learning how to use Adobe Flash was something I always wanted to do. It’s been really exciting making animations and learning ActionScript. I had a customer who wanted a way to display feedback from children on their website and was really impressed when I used drawings that children had made for them into a story book using Flash. The animation lets you flick through the pictures as if it was a real book. Seeing how excited the customer was felt really exciting for me.

My next placement is in one of the web teams. Sky now uses agile methodologies to produce most of their websites and I’m really looking forward to working in that environment. I want to move towards a scrum master/product owner role and the graduate scheme has been good for this because it’s given me a taster of each of the roles that make up a project.