Graduate Profiles: Workday Test Consultant
Tell us a bit about your background before joining Kainos
I'm Cormac, I joined Kainos in Belfast as a Graduate Workday Consultant in September 2019. I currently work as a Test Consultant within Smart which is an automated testing product built exclusively for testing Workday.
Before starting in Kainos, I completed my undergraduate degree in Business Economics with Marketing. After my undergraduate degree, I undertook a conversion Masters in Software Development. Having an interest in both Business and IT from a young age, I was always up in the air with which road to go down. I opted for the Business route, and after a couple of years of studying, I knew that I wanted to switch to more of an IT career, and the conversion Masters was a perfect fit for me.
Outside of work, you can find me playing or watching pretty much every sport under the sun. In between that, I do enjoy the occasional beer.
How was your start at Kainos?
My start at Kainos was great, I started with several other Graduates which made the process a lot easier. After a 2-week induction program with in-house training and events, we flew to Amsterdam to complete our Workday certification.
On return from Amsterdam and after completion of certification, I was introduced to my new team who were very welcoming. From here, I was introduced to the Kainos Smart testing tool, and the real work started. I was soon given more and more responsibility and allocated clients of my own, including household names like Lowe's and Mozilla. Soon I would be leading customer calls of my own which has greatly helped in developing my own personal skillset. My team were of great support and offered great guidance and training every step of the way.
What does an average day look like in your role?
A black coffee and a nice breakfast!
No two days or weeks are the same in my role here. I work on various customer Workday configurations, and each of those configurations has its own processes and demands. My week starts off by reviewing the test scripts that I have scheduled to run over the weekend for my customers, and from there, building reports and creating customer issues for tests that have failed or where there are differences from previous weeks. Once my reports have been completed, I'll work on building out some new test scripts for customers.
Towards the end of my week, I usually have customer calls to discuss any issues raised on those weeks, and any feedback received will be utilized to update test scripts and results. My role has also completely transformed from where I was a year ago. As the Smart product continues to evolve, along with bi-yearly software updates on the Workday side, the role continues to offer dynamic challenges and opportunities along the way.
What appealed to you most about a career at Kainos?
What appealed to me most was the specific job profile. I had been looking for a less technical and more client-facing IT consulting role, and Kainos offered exactly that. Coupled with the fact that it was a local company that I had seen perform well in recent years, I was immediately interested.
What advice would you give to someone thinking to apply for a graduate position?
Go for it.
There are so many different avenues and career paths within Kainos that you will not be stuck in finding a role that works for you.
Learn more about careers at Kainos here.