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MYOB

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4.6
  • #9 in Technology
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Sindhu Singamneni

Your journey is not dependent on anyone else and your confidence will continue to improve if you keep pushing yourself to learn and grow and you will definitely surprise yourself of how capable you really are at what you do.

What's your job about?

MYOB offers accounting software services and tools for businesses. There have been 2 phases in my graduate program journey so far. The first was the training phase known as acceleration where through the guidance of two mentors, I solidified my foundational knowledge of language design, elementary DevOps and backend services. The second was rotating around different crews; spending between 3-6 months in each.

In my three crew rotations, I’ve been involved in developing and maintaining a product which provides collaboration tools to help accounting practices collaborate with their clients. In my first crew, my responsibility was mainly to learn and soak in information through completing tasks and by collaborating with the other team members. During my second and third rotations, there has been more emphasis on helping the crew deliver in addition to self-learning.

A typical day starts off with a stand-up where the crew discusses what work is being done or will be done on that day and if anyone is blocked by anything. After this, I go off to work on my own or go and work together with others on a task. There are sometimes discussions where crew members bounce ideas off each other to figure out the best way to do something. Once a set of work is complete, the crew reflects on how things went, and we plan for the next set of work. I also catch up with my crew mentor and program coordinator regularly where we check up on my rotation journey plan.

What's your background?

I grew up mostly in Auckland with my family moving here when I was young. From oil painting to DIY projects around the house, I’ve always loved being creative from an early age. During high school, I took up electronics where I enjoyed making different systems to solve certain problems. The coding and creating aspect of these tasks were what stood out to me the most. At the end of high school, I knew I wanted to go into a field which would continue to foster my creativity and allow me to problem solve and engineering felt like the right choice.

After my first year at the University of Auckland, I decided to pick software engineering as my specialisation. Although my journey in software engineering wasn’t always smooth and especially at the beginning when imposter syndrome kicked in; picking up skills, improving my knowledge, making friends, networking and completing internships during the summer really helped change this.

My mentor that I met at university; along with general advice and guidance, also introduced me to the MYOB graduate program. I applied to it in my final year and ended up getting an offer which I was very excited about. I’ve been at MYOB for just over a year now and it’s been an amazing experience so far. The strong emphasis on my learning journey and the dedicated mentors that have helped me through this time, have really improved my confidence and it has helped strengthen my passion for this field.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Definitely! The graduate program has always placed an emphasis on developing the journey according to the needs of the protégé. You could start off with amazing technical prowess, or you might be a novice, and either is perfectly fine. What’s important is the eagerness and willingness to pick up skills and constantly be curious to learn more and expand your knowledge. If you’ve got this enthusiasm, you’re basically almost there. Outside of MYOB, we have an abundance of online material at our fingertips. So really, anyone can upskill themselves if they are truly passionate about starting their coding journey.

What's the coolest thing about your job?

Definitely the people. I’ve been super blessed to have had so many awesome mentors throughout my journey in the graduate program both during acceleration as well as during my crew rotations. They’ve helped me focus and upskill in the areas that I’m interested in. Through my three rotations, I’ve picked up many skills and got the opportunity to work with many talented developers. There’s also a lot of freedom in the graduate program. You can choose which crews you want to rotate into and which crew you want to make your permanent home if you’ve found the one you really like.

What are the limitations of your job? 

In the graduate program, you have the opportunity to take part in a lot of activities such as buddy catchups, code review sessions, completing challenges set by the program to name a few. I’m in my third rotation now and as I get more involved in my crew’s work, I’ve needed to step back from the program a bit. I would love to be more involved in these activities and the program a lot more, but there’s just not enough time in the day and the context switch between crew work and such activities can be too difficult at times.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

  1. Don’t doubt yourself so much or feel like everyone around you is better than you. Your journey is not dependent on anyone else and your confidence will continue to improve if you keep pushing yourself to learn and grow and you will definitely surprise yourself of how capable you really are at what you do.
  2. Don’t freak out so much. Everything will be okay in the end and you will figure out how to fix your issue somehow.
  3. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Life is too short to be scared.