Finding My Home At Rocket Innovation Studio

Growing up in Windsor, I was always hopeful that there would be local jobs for Windsorites in their chosen field of study, allowing us to stay in our hometown and get a job in our chosen field. Rocket Innovation Studio has provided this opportunity for software developers.

I attended the University of Windsor and completed a business degree, but found my passion for software development started when I took some computer science courses during my time in post-secondary.

I moved to the UK after graduating and started an admin job with the civil service. In that job, I demonstrated my technical abilities which allowed me to move into a more technical role, involving reporting on the wildlife licenses that we granted. I built our reporting system, using different technologies to automate much of the process. It was through this work that I realised that I wanted to be a software developer.

When I started to think about retraining and how I could achieve my goal of becoming a software developer, the perfect opportunity presented itself. The UK government was running an apprenticeship program to train people internally to become software developers. I applied, was interviewed and selected as one of three candidates for the new program. I completed an intensive three-month bootcamp in London, England before moving back home to learn more on the job.

I worked as part of a team that was building a new platform to replace a legacy system for granting water abstraction licences. My mentor in the work placement part of the apprenticeship helped me navigate a lot of the early mistakes and the steep learning curve which comes with being a new developer. He led by example, which really accelerated my learning and has served as a solid foundation for the start of my career. I completed my apprenticeship and continued to work on the same team that I did my placement on, continuing to build my experience without interruption.

A couple of years after completing the apprenticeship, I was talking to an old friend from university about moving back to Windsor and he told me about Rocket Innovation Studio (RIS) and that he knew someone who worked there. He put in a good word for me and before I knew it, I was in touch with a recruiter.

In my time at RIS I’ve been working on the Apollo platform and support for the loan products that we host on Apollo. This year, we launched the Apollo platform and a new solar financing product in partnership with Rocket Solar^SM. I have had an impact through my contributions and the regular discussions that we have as a team about upcoming work and the business requirements that underpin it. We dig into the details of what’s needed and go back to the business with any questions/concerns that we have.

The culture at Rocket Companies is our secret sauce. It empowers and encourages each of us, regardless of job role, to deliver our best work and to speak up when we find any issues. This helps create cohesion within teams through working towards a shared goal and having shared values through our ISMs, which are well documented and celebrated.

Rocket Companies is very involved and care about their local communities and their clients – as my first developer position at a private company, this has been an exceptional fit as I am very passionate about looking out for our neighbours and helping those who are less fortunate.