Meet ICT apprentice: Atheeshan Ananthakumaran

During my GCSEs I found IT easy. The IT teachers at my school were always welcoming and I enjoyed going to their lessons the most. Initially, I left school and went to Sixth Form, but I didn’t enjoy it. After speaking with the Head of Sixth Form, they encouraged me to focus on IT as they knew I enjoyed that subject and was good at it.

I was planning on going to Uni but applied to a few different apprenticeships and then got offered the position at Bluecube.

I remember the first day of my apprenticeship really well. It was a good day and I felt very welcome. I sat next to Daryl Connolly, Service Delivery Manager for our Global Service Desk team who was friendly.

I’m eight and a half months into my apprenticeship, and so far I’ve spent a couple of months with the Crisis Response team, a few weeks with Projects and even sat with the SOC team for a week. I’ve also worked in the FCR team and now I’m working as on-site IT support for one of client’s, MRN. When I return to the Bluecube MK office full-time, I would really like the opportunity to work with the DevOps team next.

Currently, I spend most of the week based on-site with our client, and have one day at Bluecube to complete my college work.

It’s the people that make it enjoyable.

I joined with zero IT work experience and didn’t know what to expect. But at Bluecube, there are a lot of experienced people here to help you out. They all understand and are aware that it might be your first time doing a lot of the aspects of the job role so there’s lots of great support and advice.

I have found this especially from Kyle Smith (Team Lead for Galle), Jordan Coombes (Engineer in the DevOps team) and Jon Kwok (On-Site Engineer) who’s based at MRN. They show you what you need to know, how to properly update tickets, develop your skills and experience, and tell you what you need to know in order to do well in the job and industry in the future.

Rob Gilbride (Head of Talent and Development) has also been a great help during my apprenticeship, providing wisdom and lots of opportunities for us to develop, learn and work in different teams across the business. When reconsidering whether I should go to Uni, I spoke to Rob and he offered me great advice.

Working on-site with one of client’s, I really am on the frontline helping resolve issues. One of the benefits is the client gets support from us in-person and they directly ask us for help. It’s always busy, and I’m constantly occupied with something to do. In a good way, in this team, we’re thrown in at the deep end, but there’s always that support system there if we need it.

When I was working in the FCR team, we’d be triaging tickets, picking up calls and resolving IT issues for clients remotely.

I was always worried, before joining the apprenticeship, that office jobs would just involve doing the same thing day in, day out. And I’m glad it’s not like that.

One of the things I enjoy most is that with IT, its not the same every day. There’s variety. Yes, you might occasionally get the same type of issue like a password reset, but predominantly, it’s different issues – which keeps it interesting and challenging.

At first, it was answering the phones. Right at the start of the apprenticeship, we’d triage but wouldn’t take the calls. And I was always worried about what to say and do. But after training, it actually wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. Now I’m happy and confident to pick up calls and speak to clients.

In the eight and a bit months I’ve completed so far, I have learned a lot and been given so many incredible opportunities. I really like the Bluecube work environment and when I’ve finished my apprenticeship, I’d like to continue working here for a while. With the hope to gain more experience on the IT service desk full-time and hopefully join the DevOps team.

I was able to shadow one of the DevOps team members for a bit. He was a great teacher and together we created some script, which I’m now working on to develop as the area of IT really interests me.

You will not regret it. There’s not been a single day at Bluecube where I haven’t enjoyed it, and that’s mainly down to the environment and the people.