My Experience in the Rackspace Exchange Programme

Earlier this year I was told of an opportunity to go to Rackspace for 2 weeks, as a way of gaining more experience in the tech sector with exposure to cloud infrastructure, an area that was new to me but also something I was interested in learning more about. Myself and Hayley Simpson were given the opportunity to go on this exchange and for 2 weeks from the 2nd September we were embedded into the Rackspace family.

Throughout the 2 weeks, we were given the opportunity to follow both how a new Rackspace employee (a "Racker") would be welcomed into the company in the form of the on-boarding process as well as the journey a customer would follow when looking to partner with Rackspace. Doing this allowed for brand new exposure to areas of tech we both had never seen before, from pre-sales to the support after a sale is made. Infrastructure as a whole was a fairly new concept and something only lightly touched upon on my Degree so far, so having the experts from Rackspace demonstrate how they work with customers, the different cloud platforms they use as well as the different services they offer gave a new depth and level of understanding that I know will not only open up paths in the future as a possible career progression but will also be key in supporting the development of both my Degree Apprenticeship and my personal development within GoCompare.

As well as the vast amount of knowledge and experience I gained from this 2-week exchange, it has given me a new passion for developing my technical knowledge in cloud infrastructure as even if my role as a Trainee Software Engineer does not rely heavily on using the cloud at the moment, learning how I can interact with the cloud and become confident in using it in my day to day will do nothing but support my future growth as a Software Engineer.

This also leads to potential certifications in cloud infrastructure, something that was amazing to see in Rackspace; the colourful flags over people's desks showing their certifications were inspiring and encouraged me to further my knowledge in both cloud services and infrastructure.

The final point I want to touch on is the culture of Rackspace, and the best way to describe it is to compare it closely with that of GoCo. With the amazing culture at GoCompare being one of the first things I tell people about why I love my job (the other being the love for tech), is that Rackspace is so similar in the fact everyone is so kind and welcoming, allowing you to go chat to anyone at any time. Seeing how similar it was GoCompare made it feel like we were visiting an extension of the GoCompare family and made me feel at home instantly, allowing me to fully relish the opportunity. As it was my first time in London, I ensured I took the opportunity to visit all the sights but to my surprise Rackspace gave us the opportunity to join in on their fun budget which included going axe throwing!

This exchange has been invaluable to both my technical skills and my inter-personal skills, as well as being a lot of fun! It's allowed me to grow as a person, a Software Engineer, a GoCo'er and a Racker, and I look forward to working with Rackspace as part of the GoFurther academy in the future; especially in November with 2 Rackspace graduates being embedded into GoCompare for 2 weeks. Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone who made our 2 weeks at Rackspace so fun and welcoming as well as a thank you for everyone who organised this and made an idea become such an amazing reality!

A special shout out to Enrico and Trisha for looking after us and I am very excited to see them again in GoCompare in November!