Abigail Seager

"The personality types I matched with are Communicator, Coordinator and Investigator. I'm definitely an Investigator. When technology doesn't behave like we expect, the team I work in have to find out what happened so that it doesn't happen again. For the sort of work I do, this usually means that the team have to dig really deep into how different bits of technology work to try and find out which bit of equipment didn't behave the way we though it should. Every time I end up doing this I feel like Sherlock Holmes - definitely an Investigator!I have to be a good communicator and coordinator because I work in a really small team with a lot of work and a lot of the time we're not in the same office so we can't just talk to each other over a cup of tea! We have to work really well to communicate as team so that we know who's responsible for what and who is coordinating each event. Usually we pick someone to 'lead' on a project and they'll be the main coordinator who then communicates progress back to the rest of the team."

"I’m a Systems Engineer and I work in a team whose job it is to get live TV and radio back to a studio from events that could be anywhere in the world. A lot of our work is on live events like News and Sport and it could be anything from a news bulletin outside Downing Street, to major events like 2018’s Royal Weddings, Glastonbury, Wimbledon or the Olympics to name a few. I really love my job for lots of reasons. It's different every day, I get to travel to events like the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and I work with some of the most fun and clever engineers I've ever met. And at the end of the day I get to watch things on the TV and know that I helped make it possible - I find that really satisfying!"

"Ending up in broadcast engineering was a bit of an accident for me. At the end of my Physics degree I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I started looking at different graduate schemes and saw an advert for the BBC’s Engineering Trainee Programme. I joined the BBC on that scheme in 2014 and luckily found myself falling into a career I really enjoy. I’d never considered broadcasting as an industry I could work in - so I was lucky to find it. I spend a lot of time these days trying to tell people about what I do in the hopes that some young people might think about broadcasting as an option much earlier! We really need great young problem solvers to come and be the next generation of broadcast engineers!"

"Most people are quite surprised when they hear that I make cakes in my spare time. I started off just making cupcakes and cookies and then I got into making really fun novelty birthday cakes. The first one I did was shaped like a Minion from the Despicable Me films but I've also made one shaped like a castle and a Frozen one with Olaf the Snowman on it. I made a couple of wedding cakes last year and I've got another lined up for next year! The best bit is planning how I'm going to make all the little details so it looks realistic - even cake making has a little bit of engineering involved!"

"The best thing about my job for me is that no day is really the same. Some days are full of design workshops with other teams where we make plans for events. We usually end up drawing on a whiteboard, talking a bit and then changing our mind and adding or changing bits. Other days I’m on site at an event setting things up, plugging all our equipment in and checking it works properly. And sometimes I’m at my computer, building or improving the systems we use to monitor how well our network is working - we want to know if something is going wrong before anybody watching TV at home can notice a problem! I can do most of my job from pretty much anywhere, so I go to different offices and catch up with other teams that we work with and take any opportunity I can to get out and about!"

"I had to do all the usual GCSEs like Maths, Science and English but my extra GCSE choices were PE, Food Technology, Spanish and Latin. I went on to do A levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Spanish and eventually went to University to study Physics.I joined the BBC on an engineering training scheme in 2014. I needed a degree in a STEM subject to get in, but it didn't have to be Physics or Engineering. Lots of my colleagues who joined at the same time as me had degrees in all kinds of STEM subjects from Telecommunications to Music Technology. Lots of the skills I had that set me apart from other candidates when I applied actually came from my STEM hobbies rather than my degree."