Karl Martin-Chambers: AVEVA graduate

Job: software engineer
Employer: AVEVA
Qualifications: MEng electronic engineering (computing), University of Sheffield
Graduated: 2008

At university I enjoyed solving engineering problems using computers. Applying to AVEVA, an engineering software provider, seemed a logical move. I did a six-week summer placement here before my final year and then joined the graduate scheme, which consisted of four sixmonth placements.

Managing engineering data

On my final placement I worked on a new project to develop a web-based information management product to enable clients to manage engineering data. It’s aimed at the owner-operator market, such as clients in oil and gas, process and power engineering who need to maintain and improve their own plants. For example, it allows an individual engineer to complete a piece of work (eg an AutoCAD design for a pump), upload it for approval by senior engineers and the finance department, then publish it to be viewed by the engineers who will be implementing the design on site.

I have continued to work on this after finishing the graduate scheme. I’m one of ten product developers on the project, plus two product managers, who oversee the higherlevel requirements. I work almost exclusively from our Cambridge office; however, I liaise with colleagues in Korea, India and Poland who are working on related systems, such as plug-ins that we will use. I had training as part of the graduate scheme on communicating with different cultures, which was useful. We make a lot of presumptions when we use language about what other people know, but when communicating with someone from a different culture you need to be more specific and accurate or there is room for misunderstanding.

Within the development team we take it in turns to be ‘feature owner’ for specific features of the product (eg the ability to manage and view documents, and communication management). The feature owner breaks down the product requirements for that particular feature, analyses how the system can fulfil them, gets approval for this and delegates tasks to fellow developers. This is the most challenging aspect of the job, as it involves liaising with lots of different interested parties, and making sure that you have broken down requirements sufficiently that you can give your colleagues a clear picture of what they need to produce.

Learning programming languages

Coding is another key part of my job. I use C#, SQL, HTML, JavaScript and MVC. I’ve taught myself all of these using books and blogs since starting work, either in my own time or at work. My team leader encourages me to take time for self-development, and there are programming training courses available if I wish – though personally I prefer to learn by myself. I also write tests for units of code, and liaise with the test department to ensure that the product is properly tested at a system level.

Outside work, I play football and golf several times a week. We have an informal flexible working system: standard office hours are 9.00 am till 5.30 pm but I usually do a bit extra Monday to Thursday so I can get to the golf course early on a Friday.