What was your professional background prior to joining Express?
I was a chef for 11 years. I’d always been a ‘tech nerd’ in my own time, building PCs and generally being the person who friends and family came to for tech-related issues.
Why did you decide on a career change?
When covid hit and restaurants were closed, I was furloughed. With so much time to spend with my young family made me realise the important things I was missing out on by working unsociable hours. I then made the decision to get out of the industry, and into something that I was passionate about and that was IT.
What skills, training and support were on offer?
I started at Express as a Trainee IT Technician, which mostly involved admin work, but I was given the opportunity to show what I was capable of and get recognised for the work I was doing. I was given allotted time to study towards IT certifications, allowing me to increase my knowledge and transferrable skills while being offered support from the more experienced team members.
What’s it like working as part of an in-house IT team in a law firm?
I would say there is a bigger focus on data security. While keeping personal data secure is paramount in most environments, ours is one where we handle everything from names and addresses, through to medical records and sensitive post-injury photos, so not only is keeping this data from leaving the organisation important, it’s also important to ensure things can only be accessed internally by those who need it.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Helping people who are in high stress situations, such as upcoming trial deadlines etc, where you’re able to either solve a problem, or implement a solution to make things go smoother. Being able to relieve some of that stress is massively rewarding. The fact that I’m helping the lawyers who are making a difference to injured people’s lives too often adds to the sense that I’m making a difference.
Express has experienced rapid growth, what has it been like from your perspective?
With only around a year of experience in the IT industry at the time, getting the opportunity to be involved in a project on the scale of our move to South Court (our new HQ in South Manchester) was a fantastic opportunity, albeit daunting. To be able to be heavily involved in the implementation of ground-up new network infrastructure was a fantastic learning opportunity to have so early in my IT career.
We’ve made multiple acquisitions over the past few years, including migrations from their systems as well as onboarding large groups of new employees. These experiences have been instrumental in my personal development.
You have experienced several promotions during your time at Express, did you expect to progress as quickly as you have?
As previously mentioned, I came to Express with no professional IT experience; only my self-taught ‘nerdy knowledge’. I’m incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to not only put that knowledge to use but to be recognised accordingly, allowing me to grow and progress much faster than I would have expected from my first IT job. If I went back and told chef me from five years ago that I would soon be a 2nd line IT tech I wouldn’t have believed it. Honestly, present me can hardly believe it!
What is next for you in 2025 and beyond?
There are always new things in the pipeline, including some upcoming changes that will be a first for pretty much everyone in our IT department. This is a great opportunity to get ahead of the game and expand my skillset in new ways.
What advice would you give to an IT professional considering applying to join Express?
Know your stuff but know that you don’t know everything. You need to be willing to learn, or even to be humbled when someone junior to you knows something you don’t.
“Every day’s a school day.”
What makes Express and the IT department a great place to work?
The IT team is such an incredible group of people to work with. Each has their own strengths but are willing to work on, and actively seek help with, improving their weak spots. The fact that we are all a little bit crazy helps keep morale up too, as we work hard, but we have a good laugh while doing so.
Express as a whole is a great place to work because not only are the people great, but the opportunities afforded by such a rapidly growing business cannot be understated.
Fancy joining the team?
We are currently recruiting for a number of roles, including positions within our IT department. You can see all our vacancies here.