Engineer Story: Abhishek Ladwa

My journey into tech started in 2022. I had recently graduated from university with a degree in Chemistry, but I knew that chemistry wasn’t my calling. I wanted to do something that involved skills I was truly passionate about – the problem was, I didn’t know what those skills were! After leaving university, I went on my journey to find my passion, and after some time, it finally hit me that I wanted to work in something that involved numbers, mathematics, and technology. I always loved maths through my academic career, so it made complete sense to me.

Going from maths to data analytics oddly felt like an easy choice; it just seemed to compliment both my interests as well as what I believed to be my skillset, so it felt like a very natural choice. The only problem was, the job market has been incredibly tough (especially for a new graduate trying to break into a career I didn’t have a background in), and my efforts to break into tech weren’t going very far. After several months of unsuccessful applications, Digital Futures was my salvation and gave me everything I needed to upskill and break into data. I could tell from the application process alone, that the quality that Digital Futures would be able to give me would be incredibly high.

The Academy was an amazing experience for me, and one that I had never experienced before – 12 weeks can seem like a long time, but it goes by in the blink of an eye. Although I was once again sitting like a student, it felt like so much more than that. I was getting all these new skills and experiences, but I was also meeting so many new people, networking, and learning new professional skills outside of just coding and statistics. The projects we undertook not only allowed me to upskill, but also to bond and build incredible rapport with my fellow Academy members. I loved the variety of technical skills and software that were learning, as it really allowed me to work out exactly where my strengths and weaknesses lay.

My client placement has already given me so much in such a short timeframe. I’m working at a global digital services and consulting company. The one thing about consulting is that you’re rarely ever doing the same thing every day. It really keeps you on your toes, and it enables you to learn new things, have new experiences, and overall increase your professional value as an analyst. My day-to-day work involves using business analysis techniques and software to manage work, contribute to project initiatives, and help find solutions that provide business value for the client. What I like about this the most is that it allows me to think outside of the box and help to find unique solutions that can provide incredible business value.

Digital Futures has been incredibly supportive during my placement, not only providing me with any further upskilling I may want or need but has also enabled me to maintain a network of engineers who can all relate to each other.