Consultant Spotlight: Alexander Mudd

The gruelling job search and the turning point of finding Digital Futures

I’ve always been very interested in tech and science and that led me to doing a Physics degree at the University of Cardiff. I did that course without any idea of what to do with it afterwards. I certainly didn’t understand anything about data science or data analytics at the time so I didn’t know that would be the career path I ended up going for. What I did know was that I wanted to do something which involved a combination of different things like research, maths and problem solving.

After I graduated in the summer of 2022, I tried to get grad placements in so many different industries; I tried nuclear engineering, digital engineering, business intelligence; just an abundance of different roles that incorporated different skills. In the background, I was working nights in a warehouse to earn money whilst trying to apply for all these roles at the same time, which was not fun at all. It took me the best part of a year to land something, which ended up being Digital Futures.

Building a data analytics skillset at the Digital Futures Academy

In a way, Digital Futures was a bit of a leap of faith for me. But, during the application process, the team was so open, transparent and honest and that put me at ease. I was nervous about the coding element of the training, and I was able to speak to Alex who reassured me that I’d be fine.

I absolutely loved the Academy. It was fun and it was nice to be able to apply myself full-time to learning something new. The instructors, Alex and Lisa, were really supportive and the experience is quite intimate. You have personal interactions with them and go into breakout rooms to chat with them which is nice because you don’t do that at university. And everyone else within the programme was so lovely as well. It’s nice to learn from people from all different backgrounds – we had Matty who was a Manchester United footballer, or other people that were fresh out of university or other people in their 30s with kids. It’s great to have a mix of people and being in such a diverse work environment.

The training itself is really beneficial for someone who is new to data. You start with the basics and build up into more and more complex concepts. It’s excellent at building your confidence up from that beginning stage to the point where you’re able to handle yourself to talk about things like predictive modelling, linear programming or the cloud. The professional skills part was incredible for me and everything I learned there I still use today. I take pride in helping my friends when they’re looking for jobs or struggling with interviews.

The main thing about the Academy is that it trains your mind to be in the right space, so that you’re ready for a job. I don’t use all the little details we learned in the Academy on a daily basis in my job but what it did do was train me up to get in the right frame of mind to the point where I was ready to take on a whole new industry.

Diving into data science: My first deployment in the retail sector

I was deployed straight after the Academy finished into a data science team at a large supermarket. I relocated all the way from Devon to Leeds for the role, which was a huge step for me, but I was ready for it. I’d never even been north of Birmingham before, but I wanted to commit to the job, and it was a very exciting opportunity for me. And the Digital Futures team was so supportive in helping me to make the move.

I was part of a team that worked on a “space optimisation” project. This used financial data assigned to each sale with the amount of physical space assigned to each product to build a big living predictive model which enabled us to input all that data from the last five years. That was millions and millions of rows to plot graphs which showed us sales versus space. That would produce a layout that we would bring to the insight analysts to advise changes to the layout of the products in the store to maximise value. It was incredibly interesting to see how something so trivial like where the milk is located in a store makes an impact on sales and value.

The day-to-day technical side involved a lot of coding, a lot of debugging and making sure everything we did was well documented. The role also involved presenting complex ideas to our stakeholders and so on. It had a great balance of technical and non-technical skills to a point where I was able to get exposed to all different kinds of situations like giving presentations and having retrospective meetings on sub-projects we’d done within the larger project. The skills I learned in the Academy gave me the nuts and bolts of being a data scientist – I didn’t have to get up to speed with the core of analysing a data set when on the job which was great. Outside of the technical skills, I was full of confidence coming off the back of the Academy and that was probably the most important thing for my success.

More than just a job: The supportive community and opportunities at Digital Futures

I was deployed in that role for 18 months before that contract was ended by the client due to cuts in their organisation. Digital Futures then worked incredibly quickly to deploy me to a new client. It’s a great reflection on the effort Digital Futures puts in to support you; I didn’t even have time to panic because I was redeployed basically straight away and that was a really impressive turnaround.

I’m now deployed at a UK multinational insurance company, in the asset management part of their business working as an analyst programmer. Our team’s focus is to support the business in their objectives from a technology perspective to improve investment performance and drive growth. We support on everything from building Python environments to building new APIs. It’s such an interesting industry and I do find it more interesting and enjoyable than supermarkets, so it’s worked out really well for me. The job is so diverse and I’m so excited to see where it takes me. I already know there’s going to be a lot of new skills and experiences that I’m going to develop from being in this job.

My experience with Digital Futures has been fantastic and so much better than I could have foreseen. It’s been so good for my career – within two years, I’ve gone into two different industries, in two different job roles in two different cities. Not many people can say that they’ve done that so early in their careers and none of that would have been possible on my own.

The amount of support has been amazing – I have a really strong relationship with Sydney, my Delivery Manager and everyone has been so welcoming. You feel like you’re part of a community where everyone is working together to uplift each other and get people to progress in their career. You are not just a number in a system at Digital Futures. It’s a unique experience to almost be part of two companies but it’s really enjoyable and exciting. I’m sure in the future I’ll look back on my time with Digital Futures very fondly.