Zach says:
Over the past year and three months, I’ve undergone quite a journey whilst undertaking my apprenticeship. When I started working for Millrose I had no idea about how the networking sector worked or what it would be like. Though when I did my initial trial day with Keith, I knew I had stumbled into something that I’d enjoy.
In terms of knowledge, I have gone from knowing absolutely nothing about structured cabling and any related skills, to having two City & Guilds qualifications under my belt, along with just over a year’s worth of practical knowledge. With my final assessment on the 3rd of May, I felt confident that I would be fully qualified soon.
The experiences that I’ve had over the past year have been quite unique and have given me more insight to the networking sector than if I had just taken a college course, for example.
One particularly notable experience is when we visited a ‘Civil unrest data centre’ that was planned to be rebuilt as a facility to house research data that was given a security clearance rating.
I think the most scenic or naturally beautiful location we’ve done work in is terminating fibre at a location called Hay’s Wood Retreat, which allows people to book a lodge out in the countryside in a picturesque location.
I would say the most challenging thing for me during the course of the last year is the anxiety of starting something unknown. A lot of what I’ve done in the past year has been relatively easy in retrospect, but when doing them for the first time, they feel like a mountainous task. One example of this is dipping my toes into managed networks, as someone on the outside looking in, it felt like a very complex task that needs many hours of study, but after interacting with the software for a few different manufacturers, it is quite simple to use.
I would say that the thing that I enjoy about being a data engineer the most is all the different locations we go to week by week, and the different opportunities we have to work on different projects. From investigating wireless bridges in a rural farm to being invited to work on a civil engineering project, there’s always somewhere new to go and see.
Second to this is that most jobs we go to, we have a say in how the cabling should be run, which means we get to go to site, investigate the requirements of a customer and then make a recommendation, providing a complete service to a customer is very rewarding.
Especially right at the end of a project when we boot everything up, and it all works perfectly!
