You are here: Home: Employer insights: Tessella plc: About the organisation
Tessella is a technology company that specialises in working with science and engineering clients. It provides both a consulting service (helping clients to analyse a science or engineering problem with which they need help, and suggesting software-based solutions) and software development capabilities (ie developing the software that will make the suggested solution a reality).
Depending upon the project in hand, the company may develop new applications from scratch, or adapt existing technologies.
A typical project could involve:
Tessella also offers its clients ‘team augmentation’ (ie hiring members of its staff out to a client for a particular project), and the option to outsource their R&D work to Tessella.
Key industry sectors with which Tessella works include:
Activities with which Tessella helps its clients include:
The company’s clients include:
Tessella works mainly in the US, UK and the Netherlands. The majority of its annual revenue is generated from the UK market: this has consistently formed over 65% of total revenue in the financial years from 2008/9 to the present.
Its UK offices are located in Abingdon (its head office), Burton upon Trent, Colworth, Stevenage and Warrington.
In 2011 Tessella and one of its clients, the National Archives, won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for their ‘Safety Deposit Box’ digital archive system. This has been adopted by libraries and archives worldwide.
Starting salaries for new graduate software developers are somewhere along the scale of £23,000 to £29,000. Those holding an undergraduate degree are likely to be at a lower end of the scale as masters and PhD graduates are also hired, and those qualifications are valued by the company.
Tessella’s staff are from technical, scientific and numerate degree subjects, with over half possessing a higher degree. The company’s 2008 annual report describes them as, ‘scientists first and technologists second’, demonstrating Tessella’s focus on understanding its clients’ work.
Over half of staff hold a higher degree.
Staff are also referred to as needing to be ‘more than programmers’ in order to stay competitive in their markets: client and team interaction are viewed as key skills, as well as a wider commercial awareness.
The recent economic downturn has seen Tessella slightly change the balance of how much work it does in different industry sectors. For example, its focus on life sciences has increased: by 2010 some 30% of its consultants were working in this area.
A key goal of the company is to alter how it is perceived, moving from an image of it being a technical problem-solver alone to one which highlights its consulting capabilities and how these can help clients with ‘big-picture’ issues such as business development and strategy. Indeed, Tessella is focused on getting across the point that while it offers software development solutions, these are typically as part of a wider business issue it has been called in to resolve.
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