Tag: Manchester

Digital, Featured, Home Page, Manchester, People, Software, United Kingdom, Who We Are

An environment that champions learning & development as part of productivity

Jaguar Land Rover Careers

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, agility has become the foundation of success for organisations striving to stay ahead of the curve. At JLR, one individual who plays a pivotal role in driving agile transformation is Oliver, a Senior Agile Delivery Lead based in the Manchester Digital Delivery Centre (DDC). With his wealth of experience and passion for continuous learning, Oliver has become an integral part of JLR’s journey towards agility. In this Q&A session, we delve into Oliver’s career progression, explore his contributions to various projects, discover what makes JLR’s Agile culture stand out, and gain insights into his personal journey.

Q: What position did you start in and what is your position now? Please describe your current responsibilities. 

I started as a communications manager on contract in 2020 before achieving a permanent role as a senior Agile Delivery Lead (ADL) in Manchester’s Digital Delivery Centre (DDC) in October 2022.

I form part of a software squad overseeing API development for Global Financial Services, currently transforming the financial services model for 8 of JLR’s European markets. As an ADL, my role involves mentoring, coaching and leading a cross-functional squad working in Agile and DevOps, comprising of digital engineers with varying skillsets to ensure consistent ways of working. Along with our team’s Product Owner, I coordinate the iterative approach we take to product delivery. As part of my role as an ADL, I regularly interact with the wider organisation to give talks and workshops about Agile, which is a definite highlight of my work at JLR.

Q: Are you involved in any other projects / networks? If so, please describe what they are and what your contributions are. 

The Digital Engineering team have an internal projects workflow, where team members can use their allocated 20% development time on something that interests them and can have impact to JLR. I have used this time to team up with software engineers from the DDC to develop a Team Health Check integration for Slack, to help us better shape our working environment. Our aim is to develop this for MS Teams for enterprise use across JLR.

I am also proud to be part of Digital’s first ever Team Improvement Circle (TIC). This, traditionally manufacturing-based, initiative encourages small teams of people to identify improvements to where we work. Our TIC team has been focussed on improving the awareness of the Manchester site across JLR and the magnificent work our people do. I have found that there is always something to get involved with to help shape and improve life at JLR!

Q: What do you like about working here?

The energy around our team and office is exhilarating. I have never worked in such a diverse environment, in which everyone can be themselves, have impact, and help shape the future of JLR’s digital transformation. I love that when you walk into our office you would not know who ‘the boss’ is. Having a much flatter hierarchy ensures that everyone has a voice and feel enabled to work how they want to get the most out of themselves. Being new to software, I feel extremely fortunate to work in an environment that champions learning & development as part of productivity.

Q: What are your career aspirations? Do you feel that you get the necessary support from your management / department to help achieve your learning & development goal? 

I am very fresh in the world of Agile and I adore working in this way, but fully understand that development is a never-ending endeavour. For now, my aim is to continue the steep learning curve I have put myself on and develop within my role in Delivery. In the future, I would like to make use of my background in teaching and tutoring to become an Agile Coach and help support JLR’s transformation to become a fully Agile organisation.

Q: Describe your team / department, and what makes it stand out from our competition? 

As well as what I have mentioned above, my department does not just talk the talk, it lives and breathes the culture of Agile, which translates into each day being more exciting than the last. We work in an open and honest environment where integrity matters. Finger pointing and blame have no place in our department as it stifles collaboration… we want to continually push ourselves to develop and try new things and failure is a big part of that process – we learn quicker this way.

Q: Tell us 3 interesting facts about yourself.

I have a HUGE passion for cycling and encouraging others to get involved. While I am an aspiring Ultra-cyclist, I love nothing more than trying to inspire others to ride their first miles on a bike. I set up a cycling group within an addiction charity with funding from Sport England as an outlet for those in recovery, as cycling helped save my own life from addiction. I won the British Cycling National Outstanding Achievement award for this work.

Whenever I need to travel to another JLR site, I will commute by bicycle wherever possible, which sometimes means hundreds of miles per week. It helps with my training, my headspace and is my own contribution towards JLR’s NetZero strategy!

I set myself regular challenges on the bike, including Land’s End to John O’Groats in 4 days and completing 6 ascents of Mont Ventoux, in France, within a single day to become part of a club that has fewer people as members than have been into space.

Q: What hints and tips can you share with the potential candidates who are going through the application / interview process? 

Be yourself! Our team only grows stronger with people who offer their own experience and insights into our work rather than a cookie cutter of what you may think is expected. Experience is always valuable, but we have a true focus on behaviours and how new team members from various backgrounds can help shape our culture. Have confidence in your weaknesses as well as your strengths as they could be you biggest asset in the right context. Demonstrate clear passion, not only for work, but what makes you a well-rounded individual.

Search for your careers opportunity here: https://www.jaguarlandrovercareers.com/content/Find-a-job/?locale=en_GB

Analtyics, Digital, Engineering, Home Page, Manchester, People, Software, Technology, United Kingdom, Who We Are

Show your willingness to learn, create a safe and positive environment

Jaguar Land Rover Careers

Aisha joined Jaguar Land Rover as a Site Reliability Engineer in the middle of the global pandemic. A year into her career in Manchester Digital Delivery Centre (DDC) team, she received her promotion to a senior engineer position. She passionately talked about the working culture here in Manchester, which is one of the many reasons she loves working for Jaguar Land Rover.

Find out more about our latest Tech / Digital opportunities, visit our careers website (click here) for more information.

Q: What position did you start in and what is your position now? Please describe your current responsibilities. 

I joined Jaguar Land Rover almost 2 years ago, starting as a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) and I was promoted to the Senior SRE position after a year. Currently, I am planning and implementing our new Internal Developer Platform which will be used across the whole of Jaguar Land Rover as the one place to go to for onboarding people and projects including deploying a fully functioning application into the Cloud.

Q: Are you involved in any other projects / networks? If so, please describe what they are and what your contributions are. 

Alongside my role, I led a workshop on ‘How to Argue Peacefully & Create a Safe Space within the workspace’. This is something that I am passionate about. I wanted to share what creating a safe positive environment looks like and how that can be achieved through simple yet effective day to day techniques/tools. The leadership team were extremely supportive with me planning and leading this session. It was a collaborative session, and it went down really well. I was asked to do a talk on this topic at the ‘Innovation Live’ event in Gaydon auditorium. It is a great place to work and also  develop both my technical & soft skills.

Q: What do you like about working here?

I love the culture and how collaborative everyone is in the Manchester office. It makes it a great positive environment to work and grow in.

Q: What are your career aspirations? Do you feel that you get the necessary support from your management / department to help achieve your learning & development goal? 

I would like to take more of a leadership role in the Internal Developer Platform (IDP) space. Ideally, I would like to lead a team to deliver the IDP as a great product for JLR.

Q: Describe your team / department, and what makes it stand out from our competition? 

Our department is very collaborative team (no emails, just slack). Everyone is super friendly and always willing to help.

Q: Tell us some interesting facts about yourself.

  • I love trying new crafts from knitting to candle making.
  • I can play guitar although not picked it up in a while.
  • As a child I had the opportunity to be an extra on Coronation Street.

Q: What hints and tips can you share with the potential candidates who are going through the application / interview process? 

Show your willingness to learn. Tech moves fast and it is hard to keep up but if you can show you are learning the tools and trying to keep up that looks great as it shows you have a passion!

Analtyics, Culture and Values, Digital, Engineering, Featured, Home Page, Manchester, People, Software, Technology, Top Story, United Kingdom, Who We Are

Create a positive working environment so we can deliver greater products to our customers

Jaguar Land Rover Careers

Salik graduated from the Queen’s University Belfast and joined Jaguar Land Rover 4 years ago, as a graduate. He loves working in our Manchester office and is fully committed to develop his careers here, to drive business excellence as well as delivering greater products to our customers.

Find out more about our latest Tech / Digital opportunities, visit our careers website (click here) for more information.

Q: What position did you start in and what is your position now? Please describe your current responsibilities. 

I was very lucky to have done many placements in various areas during my two-year graduate programme, it enabled me to explore and better understand our business. My home team was responsible for the Infotainment systems and I supported the Software Over the Air (SOTA) project during my time there; I was also part of the Product Launch team that built the New Range Rover. In addition, I gained invaluable experiences in both Manchester DDC (Digital Delivery Centre) and Shannon office in Ireland during my rotation.

I am currently a Site Reliability Engineer. My responsibilities include working with Google Cloud Platform provider to host Jaguar Land Rover in-house apps and closely managing each release to ensure there is no delay. My experiences and knowledge also enabled me to identify improvement opportunities, as well as recommending / developing solutions to drive business excellence. I worked on automating a process that rotates Vault Access Tokens in GitLab overnight. These tokens are used to access the Vault where we store sensitive information. As a result, the automation delivered tangible business benefits by removing manual intervention and ensuring better security.

Q: Are you involved in any other projects / networks? If so, please describe what they are and what your contributions are. 

I am currently working on the Pivotal project which predominantly focuses on developing a customer-facing subscription app for new vehicle sales. The project allows our customers to lease Jaguar Land Rover vehicles for a minimum of 6 months period, at a fixed cost. As a part of the subscription, customers also have the opportunity to change to a new vehicle every 6 months. In addition, this project also simplifies the customer onboarding process which includes customer background checks, traditionally can be time consuming.  

Q: What do you like about working here?

The culture here in Manchester DDC is very appealing to me. People here are very friendly and always so helpful. Everyone is doing their part to contribute towards a positive working environment so that we can deliver greater products to our customers.

Q: What are your career aspirations? Do you feel that you get the necessary support from your management / department to help achieve your learning & development goal? 

I aspire to be a leader one day. I have a clear vision that can have positive impact on our business and our people. I have always had the great support from my management to achieve my goals.

Q: Describe your team / department, and what makes it stand out from our competition? 

People in my team all eager to design / develop greater products. Everyone is really driven and fully committed. We also know how to have a laugh and will never miss an opportunity to organise social events. I believe the willingness to constantly drive business excellence makes us stand out from the competition.

Q: Tell us some interesting facts about yourself.

  • Hobbies: Football – I never miss a chance to play or watch a game. Best experience was to watch Lionel Messi in Camp Nou Barcelona.
  • Achievement: I left home at 17 to move to a different continent alone to start my adult life. Being the only child and experiencing the world at that age, starting university, meeting new people, was a big achievement.
  • Very First Car: A ford fiesta, in red. Not as fast but holds a special place in my heart.

Q: What hints and tips can you share with the potential candidates who are going through the application / interview process?  Be confident in who you are. Don’t be shy to express yourself and your ideas. Be honest.

Digital, Early Careers, Engineering, Hints and Tips, Home Page, Manchester, Software, Technology, Undergraduate, Who We Are

JLR stands out by providing undergraduates and graduates, like myself, with many opportunities.

Jaguar Land Rover Careers

Charlotte joined Jaguar Land Rover as a Product Engineering undergraduate 5 months ago. She is also an integral part of the ECI (Early Careers Innovations) committee where she presents / organises many Early Careers events. Charlotte passionately talked about her life at Jaguar Land Rover as an undergraduate, and she is looking forward to developing her career with Jaguar Land Rover for many years to come.  

Find out more about Jaguar Land Rover’s Undergraduate Placement Programmes, click here for more information.

Q: What position did you start in and what is your position now? Please describe your current responsibilities. 

I started as a software developer, mainly developing the front-end of the PIVI web apps. I spent 4 months in that role, and now I have just started the UX designer role, designing the Jaguar Land Rover mobile app. As I am on an industrial placement, I have the opportunity to rotate around different positions in the business every few months, to get a taste for all the roles which I’m interested in trying.

Q: Are you involved in any other projects / networks? If so, please describe what they are and what your contributions are. 

I am a part of the ECI (Early Careers Innovations) committee, where I present and organise guest speakers to present to the Early Careers employees, about current innovations occurring across various departments.

Q: What do you like about working here?

I like the opportunity I am given, as an undergraduate, to try out various departments which I am interested in, rather than just working in the same role for the whole placement. It allows me to try new things which I may have not considered before. I have been surprised at how much I enjoyed the roles which I didn’t initially sign up to.

Q: What are your career aspirations? Do you feel that you get the necessary support from your management / department to help achieve your learning & development goal? 

I aspire to progress in a technology-related role; I’m not entirely sure what job specifically yet, as I’m still trying out many roles in my placement. I am hoping to be offered a gradate job at the end of my industrial placement, and then be offered a permanent job with the company, post-grad.

Q: Describe your team / department, and what makes it stand out from our competition? 

Jaguar Land Rover stands out by providing undergraduates/graduates, like myself, with many opportunities. They offer exciting business trips, where you can visit the different sites and explore your work in action in our vehicles. They also give you the opportunity to try out various roles in the company and allow you to find out which role you enjoy/suits you the best.

Q: Tell us some interesting facts about yourself.

  • I really enjoy hiking in the UK’s national parks; I completed the DofE Bronze, Silver and Gold awards.
  • Soon, I want to travel Europe and in particular explore Iceland and the Switzerland mountains.
  • My favourite season of the year is summer and I’m not a fan of winter.

Q: What hints and tips can you share with the potential candidates who are going through the application / interview process? 

Find out a lot about the company and the current goals Jaguar Land Rover is working towards. Not only will it give you better knowledge of the company which you are hoping to work for, it may also give you a better idea of what areas of the business you’re more interested in working in. For example, when I was applying to the company, I realised that I was very interested in PIVI. I mentioned that I was particularly interested in this in the interview, and to my surprise, I was offered a job as a software developer in the PIVI team.

Digital, Diversity & Inclusion, Home Page, Manchester, Software, Technology, Who We Are

Driving value through enhanced products and customer experiences, by leveraging our connected car data, as well as improving gender diversity in the business

Jaguar Land Rover Careers

Tamanna Haque, the regional winner of this year’s #WeAreTechWomen #TechWoman100 awards, and a remarkable woman within the technology and STEM sector. Tamanna is a Lead Data Scientist at Jaguar Land Rover, based in central Manchester, one of Jaguar Land Rover’s technology hubs. She helps to lead a team of data scientists to improve products and customer experiences by leveraging the connected car and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Find out more about Jaguar Land Rover’s Technology Hubs and exciting career opportunities, click here for more information.

Q: What projects are you working on?

I was recently promoted to technical specialist, as a Lead Data Scientist, working within Product Engineering. My role involves using the connected car and AI to make our products and customer experiences better, whilst leading within our wide data science team too. I’m particularly interested and active in enabling a more electric and modern luxury future from the use of vehicle data.

As well as delivering autonomously, I act as a technical lead on numerous other projects, by leading, reviewing and sharing best practice.

Q: Are you involved in any other projects / networks? If so, please describe what they are and what your contributions are. 

I’ve led outside the team by mentoring female apprentices with a tactical approach, working with them on original project ideas with many value streams.

More recently I founded a ‘Women in AI’ group at Jaguar Land Rover which provides female members (business-wide and of various levels of seniority) with technical and soft-skill development opportunities in a challenging, male-dominated field. Over the past 12 months, founding and making this network an ongoing success has been an achievement, bringing a sense of empowerment and belonging to its women and hopefully helping to attract and retain female talent within this advanced field at Jaguar Land Rover.

Additionally, I was chosen for a new (voluntary) role within Jaguar Land Rover’s Women in Engineering committee as its Analytics Lead, helping committee chairs and executive sponsors to become better informed in their decision-making towards improved gender diversity.

I’ve done a lot of work externally which has promoted my skillset and those of my audiences. I’ve delivered numerous talks to industry professionals, students, and women’s leadership and diversity groups, with the goal of promoting inclusion within AI and automotive. The other angle to my talks involves following your passions and dreams- for me, this was the Jaguar brand and has been since childhood. Externally I have also been a guest lecturer at a leading UK university this year, and I’m supporting multiple students (who are also on placement with Jaguar Land Rover) with their final-year, industry-based projects.

Q: What do you like about working here?

My journey with Jaguar Land Rover started long before I was employed by the company! Since I was nine years old, I’ve been passionate about the Jaguar brand, writing about them, attending previews, going to experience days! I was a fan-turned-customer at 22, hands on with their product, and up to date with the company news.

So to be working for Jaguar Land Rover now is what dreams are made of; I feel at one with our customers and their experiences, and I’m personally committed towards our products and customers. It’s pushed me to find new limits in myself to serve better, and I’m grateful that Jaguar Land Rover supports me with my growth.  I’m particularly excited to be playing my part towards the reimagination of Jaguar as an all-electric luxury brand.

Q: What are your career aspirations? How do you get support from your management / department to help achieve your learning & development goal? 

I started as a senior data scientist here, it was a new role and a new team with lots of opportunities, but I also created them. Expectations were only a small part of what I was doing, but this has been recognised with the promotion recently. I’m grateful to be working at a place where hard work and commitment is recognised and rewarded. 

Q: Describe your team / department, and what makes it stand out from our competition? 

I work in the data science team within Product Engineering. The data science team in Manchester originated with myself and one of my teammates – it’s since grown a lot (cross-sites and countries) and developed into a high-performing, advanced data science team.

What makes us stand out is the nature of our work – we mostly use vehicle data, which is different to a lot of other commercial businesses or teams who’ll focus more on transactional or web data. The data we use lends itself to some pretty interesting projects, and a general futuristic feel here.

Q: Tell us some interesting facts about yourself

  • To put it simply- I love Jaguar!
  • I’m a born and bred Mancunian, so I was excited to learn when Jaguar Land Rover opened an office here. It opened the possibility of working for a globally recognised company, of great value to me, without having to relocate and leave my family and friends. I enjoy meeting colleagues at the Manchester office and socialising with my team in Manchester- it’s a vibrant area for work and after hours.

Q: What hints and tips can you share with the potential candidates who are going through the application / interview process? 

Don’t be afraid to be authentic! I’ve had to grow in confidence to be my authentic self, and it makes connecting with people around you easier.