Kate Darbyshire

"I am a natural Quality Controller and Trainer - I like to think I'm organised, efficient, good with detail and trustworthy. Although \"Influencer\" doesn't sound like me, the description does fit me and my role pretty well. Things like \"diplomatic\", \"thorough and reliable\" and \"good with detail\" do describe me well and are essential for my job writing safety critical software - that's software that cannot crash or fail, for example air traffic control software or rail signalling systems. "

"I mainly test code for bespoke safety-critical systems that clients ask us to develop. These could be anything from air traffic control systems to backup railway signalling systems, or defence systems - things that can not fail or peoples lives will be at risk. Our company helps to develop the whole system starting with working out what it needs to do and how it's going to do it (the requirements), followed by implementing it and testing it. I've worked on all of these different lifecycle areas. I enjoy the team working involved in my job. These are big projects that several tens of people are working on at one time and I enjoy being part of a team that's all working towards the end goal. I also enjoy working with my colleagues on our little bit of the project - we're always interacting, discussing problems and reviewing each others work.The starting salary for my job as a graduate is £25,000 with options to earn up to ~£70,000 for a senior technical person."

"I had quite a round about route into software engineering. At school I loved Physics and especially astrophysics (the study of stars, galaxy, space and everything in it) and so I went to university to study this and then continued on doing a PhD and research into distant galaxies. Unfortunately, there are not so many jobs in astrophysics research and I wanted to stay living in my area (with my now husband and young family) so I found a local job in software engineering. I chose software engineering as I had some experience of coding through my degree and PhD and I liked the idea of working in an engineering company doing lots of different projects in different areas - Capgemini has projects in aerospace, rail, defence, energy etc."

"I'm a keen runner, or I was, having raced everything from 5k to marathons. I now have a 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son and so spend a lot of my spare time running around after them! I also like sewing, quilting, knitting and crocheting craft projects and growing my own vegetables in the garden."

"I start work at 8.30am after dropping the kids off and check on our project management website (called Jira) for what tickets I have to do today. The Jira tickets get assigned to you for implementing or reviewing and the aim is to finish and close them in a few days. So I'll get started on some of my tickets whilst my colleagues turn up (its pretty flexible what hours you work at Capgemini and what mix of working from home or office you do). At 10am we have a daily standup meeting where we all say what you did yesterday and what you are going to do today. This is a good chance to highlight any issues to the project managers or team leads and to get someone to review your work or get given reviews to do. The rest of my day is spent working on the tickets which are either coding or requirements (a big Word document setting out what the system should do) related. We might have a team meeting once a week to discuss progress and what needs to be done or I might go interview someone or do a demo to a client but generally I'm working on my stuff and chatting to colleagues as and when I get stuck."

"I did A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and General Studies. I then went to Cambridge University to study Natural Sciences specialising in Physics, which was a four year course. I then went on to do a PhD at the University of Bristol in Astrophysics - another 4 years of study and research! I started doing research into astrophysics for a few more months before I changed careers to go work in Software Engineering at Altran (now Capgemini). And that's where I've been for the last 8 years - I must enjoy it!"