As part of International Women’s Day, we interviewed our Senior Business Analyst Angela Bandey about her role at Polaris and her journey as a woman in tech.
My job is to work with organisations to work out how they can operate more effectively through technology. So I go out into businesses and look for any needs or gaps I can see. Then I get those requirements turned into digital systems.
I like the fact I get to be creative. I like designing things and coming up with effective solutions. And I like making people’s lives easier! That process that takes you several hours? I can help you make that a one-click button – and do it all behind the scenes.
I didn’t! I was a broke English graduate who took the first job that came along – which happened to be in insurance. And then I fell into testing insurance technology, and grew into developing it.
What I do isn’t particularly ‘technical’. I’m more like the translator between the client and the developers, who often just don’t speak the same language! Clients tell me what services or products they need – developers tell me what’s possible and I’ll represent each to the other and negotiate from there.
Tech roles aren’t all about programming. You don’t have to be a nerd coding in their bedroom or have a computer science degree under your belt. There are a billion different jobs around the edges of tech that need you and your skills to make things work for end users – from marketing to analysis, project management to product design.
Technology is an incredibly important part of the world. Don’t rule yourself out of it.
Diversity is SO important in tech. Your designing solutions for people to use – people who are all different. If you’ve got the same set of people doing the designing you’ll get the same solutions over and over again – and they won’t work for everyone. Innovation requires diversity, and the more types of people involved the better the solutions are going to be.
Earlier in my career I was the only woman in the room, and occasionally visiting clients they’d talk to my male colleague rather than to me – but I’ve seen things improve a lot over the last 25 years. And I’ve always worked for incredibly supportive companies.
My mum. She was a woman in a male dominated industry – a property surveyor. So I always knew I could belong anywhere I wanted to be and that anything was possible.
Hanging out with my husband, my books, and my three cats.
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