We asked one of our interns, Donna Haws, why she chose to begin her career at Influential Software.

I was interested in applying the base skills from my university course in a practical setting. With a background in financial analysis and a first degree in Economics, I’ve always had an interest in data; the opportunity to train in business intelligence at Influential was a natural fit for where I saw my career progressing.

I learned in the interview that Influential had a track record of taking on Master’s placement students, particularly from the University of Kent’s conversion MSc Computer Science course. Additionally, the company seemed very supportive, so I had the impression that I would be well looked after during the placement. This has so far been the case as we are assigned mentors, and additionally, the rest of the team is very helpful as well. In my first two weeks I’ve been helping the support team with tickets from our clients who use SAP’s Business Objects platform. Additionally I have been training in the Information Design Tool (IDT) learning about how to build a business layer and universe design. My goal on this placement is to become fluent in the BI technologies that we use, with the understanding of how they apply to both reporting and predictive analytics. In my spare time, I hope to be able to keep tinkering around with SQL and Python.

We asked Rowan Morgan-Odell for her impressions of Influential Software before and after starting work with us.

The reputation Influential has at University of Kent is excellent. I like the atmosphere – the banter between the Heads of Support and Development demonstrated that this was an organisation so enthusiastic about what they did and I’m absolutely keen on sharing that passion.

I was drawn to the Support department as I wanted to experience everything that a systems and network administrator’s role could involve and get a chance to use some of my security skills.