Consultant Spotlight: Vianka Govender
Digital Futures 
At Digital Futures, we’re equipping individuals from all backgrounds with the right skills to start their careers and make a real impact for our clients.
Vianka joined Digital Futures with a clear goal of working in data engineering. The Future Talent Programme has given her the springboard she needed to learn, develop and thrive working as a data engineering consultant with one of Digital Futures’ clients.
My interest in tech goes back to when I was finishing school, and I started to learn a bit of Python programming to help me in my upcoming mechanical engineering degree. I did some online courses and completely fell in love with coding, because I loved the problem-solving aspect and being able to come up with solutions, so I ended up deciding to change my mind and do a computer science degree instead.
"My goal was to get into machine learning and AI, and data engineering was the perfect stepping stone to break into that."
I finished university in 2023, and I had a software engineering role lined up to start in September of that year, but unfortunately due to the difficult market conditions, that contract was cancelled. So, when I finished university, I started a government data engineering bootcamp instead. A career in data engineering was a bit of a pivot for me, but it was quite a strategic choice. I’m fortunate that a lot of my close family friends work in tech, and they were able to offer me a lot of advice about the IT industry and which sectors would be the best and most stable to pursue, given that AI was becoming such a big theme. My goal was to get into machine learning and AI, and data engineering was the perfect stepping stone to break into that.
I ran into my neighbour, Abhishek, and he told me all about the Digital Futures programme – he’d already done it and was deployed on client site, and I thought, “why not, let’s just give it a go” because it sounded really interesting. I wanted to learn more about data and the fact that Digital Futures had so many high-profile clients drew me in – it made me feel more secure about finding a role after the training.
The Digital Futures application process was a breath of fresh air in comparison to other processes I’d done. At the interview stages, everyone made me feel really comfortable. It was nice, because I got to have a conversation with the team – I got to know a bit more about Digital Futures and they got to know a bit more about me.
Across the 12-week data engineering Academy, my skills developed a lot. I did have a basic foundation in data, but I obviously hadn’t covered everything, so the Academy filled a lot of the gaps in my knowledge. The cloud engineering aspect was something I enjoyed quite a lot because it was new to me and cloud was also a real interest of mine. Cloud is one thing in the IT sector that is not going anywhere so I was excited to learn about that and develop that skillset.
The professional skills training was something I found so valuable – I needed a lot of help with my interview skills and that part of training set me up really well for my client interview. Before my client interview, I was really nervous, but I was so grateful for the mock interviews I did with the Digital Futures team. The preparation was great and really helped to calm me down before the real thing because I knew going into the interview that I was well prepared – I knew how to approach it and was armed with all the key information I needed, like what tech stack the client used, what Udemy courses I could reference, and more about the company’s culture.
After finishing my training, I was deployed as a data engineer at one of the UK’s largest insurance companies. There’s a really big migration going on at the moment and I joined just as they started that my day-to-day involves doing a whole range of things. In a nutshell, my role in the migration involves moving my departments tables onto the new platform and managing the end-to-end process, gathering the requirements needed to ensure the tables are in the correct place for the stakeholders to access.
"Collaborating with other people or taking all the opportunities that come my way, like taking part in panels or showcasing my code, has all helped my personal development."
Outside of my day-to-day, I’m also involved in onboarding new members of the team even though I only joined a few months ago. It was quite scary actually when I first started doing it and new people were shadowing me, but I had to remember that I was also new once. This has helped me greatly with improving my communication skills and it also developed my time and people management skills further because I had to ensure that I was making time for them and that I was letting them be a bit independent. Even though I’m so busy, I’d rather be doing all of this than not doing anything at all!
I genuinely really enjoy the tasks I’m doing, and I love being able to use my problem-solving skills. Sometimes I don’t even code, sometimes it’s just debugging, but I find that really interesting too because I’m actually using my brain and using all the things I learned during the Academy. Collaborating with other people or taking all the opportunities that come my way, like taking part in panels or showcasing my code, has all helped my personal development.
When I think about how much I’ve learned over the last few months, it’s absolutely amazing. The Academy set me up really well, but I’ve done so much learning on the job. I learned a lot of the concepts that I’m using on a day-to-day basis during my training, like data governance or about the data ecosystem, and these are slowly being introduced as I develop in my role. In the real world, you do need to collaborate and communicate your way through challenging situations and having that patience and being able to stay calm in my job comes from the training at the Digital Futures Academy.
I’ve received so much support from Digital Futures throughout this journey – whether it was from my instructors and mentors during the training or the support I receive from my Delivery Manager, Sydney. The conversations I have with her give me the chance to talk things through and get an unbiased perspective or a different view, which really helps me navigate my day-to-day. I don’t think I would have been able to achieve this without the team’s support at every stage. Having those senior figures that help to mentor you and guide you is incomparable and helps so much.
Being part of Digital Futures has been amazing because it’s such a tight knit community. We have socials and spend time with the whole team which really allows everyone to get to know each other. So many of us have gone through the same experience and it’s great to have your first job in this type of environment where so many people are willing to help and support you.
"So many of us have gone through the same experience and it’s great to have your first job in this type of environment where so many people are willing to help and support you."
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