Aoife Brown

"I think being a 'co-ordinator' is really helpful in my job as a software engineer as being organised allows me to work out solutions to problems efficiently..The 'influencer' personality type is also useful because it's important for me to be able to explain my thought processes around the work I produce.In software development there's usually more than one right way to do something, being a 'quality controller' helps me weigh up the different options and choose the best one for each situation. "

"The team I am in is part of the Payment Security department and the main product we work on is called Token Management Service. TMS exchanges sensitive payment data for tokens so that merchant's don't need to store their customers' credit card details on their systems. Most of my time is spent coding and testing new features for TMS. One of the things I enjoy most about my job is the satisfaction when I finally find a solution for a tricky problem I've been stuck on. I also love the variety of the work, every task I work on is different from the last one so I'm always learning new things. I also think it's cool to think about how many people use code that I've worked on without even knowing, like when they checkout on a website online.The average salary of a graduate Software Engineer in Belfast is £24,000."

"Whenever I was making my A-Level choices I had no idea what I wanted to do so I just chose subjects that I enjoyed which were Biology, Chemistry and Psychology. Unfortunately, at my school the careers teachers encouraged every one who studied sciences to apply to study medicine at university, but I knew this wasn't for me, so I was still really confused about what to do. Until, one day a speaker from a university was giving a presentation and she mentioned software engineering and all the opportunities available in Belfast and I was so inspired.I went on to complete a degree in software engineering at Queen's University Belfast. This included a placement year which I completed at CyberSource. I worked in two different teams during my placement and I even got to travel to San Francisco! After I finished my placement I was offered a graduate job at CyberSource and I've now been in my current role for just over a year. "

"I love to read, I try to read a book a week and I like to read a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.I also love to create fun, colourful eyeshadow looks at the weekend!I love to travel, the next big trip that I hope to do is backpacking around Central America!"

"I usually start my day my catching up on emails and messages that have come through over night. At 10 o'clock everyday we have stand up, which is a 15 minute meeting where everyone on the team gives a brief update on what they're working on and can bring up any issues they're having or if anything is blocking them from completing their work. After this I usually continue coding from where I left off the day before. I also review my teammates code. If I finish everything assigned to me I check if my teammates need any help with testing or reviews, and then I would pick up a new piece of work.Some days we also have meetings to plan and prioritise what we will be working on next.As we're working remotely at the minute I also have a daily meeting in the afternoon with the two interns on my team to catch up with them to answer any questions they have or give them advice about what they're working on. "

"2015 - A Levels: Biology (A) Psychology (A) Chemistry (B)2019 - 1st Class BEng Software Engineering, Queen's University Belfast"