Life at AL: From a Senior Engineer

Piotr Grześkowiak has been at Automation Logic for just over five years, starting out in our DevOps Academy after graduating in Computer Science with Information Security. During those 5  years, he’s gone from an engineer in training to a well respected senior engineer, trusted by the whole company.

Piotr’s been on three Central Government client projects and 2 internal AL projects. There are always internal projects happening within AL, exploring opportunities to branch out into new offerings.  This is your chance, as an engineer, to try a few things out.  Not all of them work but it’s in our culture to give anything a go, just ‘fail fast.’ So these projects are a good learning experience.  

Piotr’s experience…

Project rotation is always going to be a part of being a consultant, sometimes projects end sooner than you hope, others you may enjoy less but that’s when you express an interest in moving on. The current project I’m on, I actually want to stay on for as long as possible.

There is no hard and fast rule to apply at AL when it comes to project rotation, it depends on a number of factors. The client environment, the type and variety of work, project milestones and the preference of individuals. On average AL like to have initial discussions on an individual’s rotation when they’ve spent 9 months on a project. New projects roll around really quickly, there’s always something different to work on if that’s what you want to do. 

I’ve had the opportunity to learn and continuously grow my skills on different projects, I’ve jumped from Azure to AWS and my technical abilities have become quite transferable over time. It’s now quite easy to pick up different things.

We’re given a £2,000 a year training budget to use on anything that may be of use to us in our career here, as well as being incentivised to complete certs with our key partners. When I was exploring data avenue, I did a certification around that with GCP. The training is good quality, and we’re encouraged to take some time off projects to study. I’m doing the Corndel Leadership Training course at the moment to help me grow into a leadership role. Once that course is finished, I’ll probably move on to something else. 

When it comes to autonomy at work, in the current project I’m working on, I happened to get involved in a sub-component of the platform. Over the last few months, I’ve been working on making decisions and changes alone, because we’re trusted as a business and as consultants. I’m now trying to get more people involved for knowledge-sharing purposes. While on previous projects, I’ve always been able to pick up a task I think I’ll enjoy, take care of it and then move on to more of the same.

The team culture here is really great. On my first ever project, the team I was in bonded very quickly. We were dealing with a lot of live issues almost exclusively, it was definitely a bonding experience! Automation Logic is a great place to make new friends. The individuals you’ll meet here are incredibly diverse, but also like-minded. And it’s a great thing! People are keen to meet, join social events and build potentially lifelong bonds. A great example of that would be my recent trip abroad, where I got an opportunity to meet with an old AL friend whom I haven’t spoken to for what must have been more than 3 years, as he had to move back to his country. As soon as we met, it felt like nothing ever changed and I had a blast. The friendly nature of AL builds a supportive environment to grow. During my 5 years here I’ve been able to learn from very experienced engineers, who were always available to answer my questions, no matter what they were. This contributed greatly to my personal and professional development.

You definitely get good recognition within the company, my salary has been improved regularly and I’m happy with it. There comes a point when you’re very comfortable in a company and the lifestyle that it offers. For me it’s work/life balance, not wanting to do overtime and weekends is now more important. My line manager is great, proactively gives a lot of feedback and previous projects were the same, we always heard about our achievements as a team. 

Working in Central Government for 5 years, admittedly the processes can be more traditional but some are really forward-thinking. My current DM is forward-thinking ones which makes the department a pleasure to work at. It comes back to autonomy, we make decisions and play with things without having to wait for processes that are insufficient in the current climate. Things became much more dynamic. There are opportunities for getting involved with how teams are run: from my own experience, I’m being given opportunities to run meetings or to manage the team in small ways just to get practice and start learning to position myself for growth.

For more information on growing you career at Automation Logic, take a look at what jobs we’re hiring for at the moment. Or get in touch with our team directly. Sean and Paul are always happy to hear from you!