I’m excited to see what the future holds now that I’ve started my career in programming.
- Iain Watson
Meet Iain
Iain is a British Armed Forces Veteran who spent 22 years working for the Royal Air Force as an Intelligence Analyst. After finishing his service, Iain found himself working a job that he didn’t enjoy and eventually quit, leaving him unemployed and unsure what his future career would look like.
Iain's journey
Back when Iain was still serving, but contemplating his next step, a colleague from a former posting sent him a LinkedIn message about WithYouWithMe. He looked into the veteran program and was interested in free tech training and the potential roles on offer, so he kept it in mind for the future.
“I have always enjoyed dabbling with HTML and was thinking about learning more programming languages. WithYouWithMe seemed to offer some interesting opportunities for free training and finding a new career pathway.”
After leaving his most recent role, Iain decided now was the time to sign up and follow the part of him that wanted to get into programming.
Fujitsu are part of the 15,000 Futures Initiative which calls upon UK employers to help ex-servicemen and women find meaningful employment by offering them opportunities to enter digital roles.
Self-paced learning for Software Development
After completing his aptitude testing, Iain entered the Software Development Pathway, hoping to learn more about programming.
The pathway took around 8 weeks complete. The training experience was good, all self-paced and online meaning I could get it done in my spare time. WithYouWithMe’s instructors were always on-hand and happy to explain things when I needed help.
A bright future at Fujitsu
While in training, Iain attended a Job Accelerator event WithYouWithMe was hosting alongside Fujitsu, a global leader in technology and business solutions. He was interested in the roles on offer and subsequently attended an interview with Fujitsu, after which he was hired to be an Application Developer.
Iain is currently undertaking further training internally at Fujitsu to expand his skillset before starting his new role. In the future, he hopes to gain the broader programming skills and knowledge necessary to progress into other software or cyber security roles within the business.
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