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S6 Ep13: Social Security Scotland: Harnessing Tech to Forge Fairness and Foster Growth | The DevLab Podcast
Embarking on a transformative journey through the digital corridors of Social Security Scotland, we've sat down with an extraordinary team whose personal stories are as compelling as the work they do. Shahbaz, Anna, Craig, and Roy, each with a unique narrative and shared mission, have opened up about the crossroads of technology and public service, highlighting how their career paths – from a two-decade tenure at a previous job to a deeply rooted commitment to the public sector – are driven by the desire to foster a fairer society. They've given us an intimate look at the company's culture, which champions both employee well-being and societal impact, resonating with anyone yearning to merge their tech skills with meaningful work.
Throughout our conversation, we uncovered the nuances of making a career shift, the emotional resonance of finding purpose in one's work, and the fulfilling progression within the walls of Social Security Scotland. Whether it was Craig's leap from retail into governmental service or Roy's ambition to expand his tech horizons in Dundee, each story echoed a common theme: the pursuit of personal growth while contributing to the greater good. Listeners will be inspired by the behind-the-scenes look at the agency's support for career development, from temporary role explorations to sponsored educational pursuits, all aimed at propelling individuals along their chosen paths.
As we delved deeper into the technical side of Social Security Scotland's mission, we peeled back the layers of cloud computing efficiency, the evolving role of enterprise architecture, and the impact of tech trends on innovation and skill development. Our guests shared key insights on designing nimble systems, the significance of automation, and how a melange of backgrounds and experiences creates a dynamic work environment. This episode is not just a window into the lives of those at the forefront of tech in public service but a testament to the power of diversity, community, and relentless passion for making a difference in the lives of others through technology.
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Social Security Scotland are an executive agency of the Scottish Government. They have been set up to administer the new Scottish Social Security system. Their aim is to contribute to the creation of a fairer society and their vision is to provide support to everyone when they need it. Hi everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of the DevLab podcast brought to you by HackerJob. I'm your host, ellis, and in this week's episode I sat down with the team at Social Security Scotland. Shabazz, anna, craig and Roy join me on the podcast. We touched on enterprise architecture transitioning into a new tech role within Social Security Scotland, the diversity of teams and opportunities at Social Security Scotland and the projects they work on that impact society, plus so much more. Without further ado, let's get into the episode Before we start. Let's get into the episode Before we start.
Speaker 2:let's go through some introductions Shabazz, if you'd like to introduce yourself. Hi there, I'm Shabazz Majeed. I'm the Infrastructure Delivery Manager in the Cloud Engineering team in the Chief Digital Office.
Speaker 3:I'm Roy Meady and I'm a Solutions Architect.
Speaker 4:Hi there, so my name is Craig Robb and I'm an Associate Security Information Risk Advisor. I've been doing that role since literally Monday, and previous to that I was a Service Desk Analyst in the Social Security Scotland Service Desk.
Speaker 5:Hi there. My name is Anna Eglitz and I work as an Enterprise Architect in the Chief Digital Office at Social.
Speaker 1:Security Scotland Shabazz. We'll start with you. I'm keen to know what motivated you to join Social Security Scotland and what unique aspects of the organisation drew you initially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry For me, I didn't know much about Social Security Scotland. To be honest. Initially I'd heard about them setting up in Dundee they've picked up a new office here and it was very sort of bits and bobs of information that I had. But when I first had someone reach out to me about some roles in there, I had no idea of one, the type of roles, what type of work that they did. As I say, it was very basic information. So I started to look into it and found out they were actually quite a big organization with quite a variety of tech and non-tech roles. So, as with any kind of sort of offer and looking into new roles, I started to dip in and have a look at what people are saying about them.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you look at Glassdoor and things like what are the benefits and so like the pension, the flexible working and policies around parents and having a young family myself. That was really important about allowing you the flexibility to be able to spend time with them around your work. Obviously, work's important, but so is family life and that was kind of really attractive for me, my last organization where I was. I was there for over 20 years, so it was going to be a big move for me, so I had to make sure it was going to be, you know, sort of the right one for where I was.
Speaker 2:And then, obviously, getting into what does social security actually do and the fact that they deliver the benefits and and how from reading through their blog posts and independent sort of media was that the work that they were doing was basically changing lives in terms of people who needed the most. They were getting the benefits that they needed the most. So for me, that kind of working in that environment and that kind of organization where they had those policies to support you as an individual, you know, became eventually a no-brainer for me and that was my sort of first vision or access to what social security was before I joined, and that ultimately then led me to taking the dream, accepting an offer and here I am, here.
Speaker 1:You are no brilliant and thanks for for going over that for us Shabazz. And also I'm keen to know sort of everyone's journey into social security Scotland that's joined me on the podcast today. Anna, we'll go to you. Yeah, what motivated you to join Social Security Scotland and what was your sort of journey into tech and that side of things?
Speaker 5:Absolutely yes. So both of the organisations that I've worked for have been public sector, and I definitely think that's something that generally draws me into work in an organisation that delivers benefits or a good to the public. And even though I don't work in the front line or directly interact with our clients, I'm still aware of how my job contributes to delivering the goals and objectives of Social Security Scotland, and that's something that is important to me in a job. To feel like the work that I do actually makes a difference, and I can also say that it's a fantastic journey in general to start your career in the public sector, as you have a great amount of development opportunities available to you. I've always felt like people really cared about my development, whether it's providing training opportunities, time spent learning from others, chances of getting involved in various initiatives to gain experience and so on, and particularly that part about learning from others. I think that's how I've learned most in experience and so on, and particularly that part about learning from others. I think that's how I've learned most in my career so far, by spending time with and working alongside experienced professionals who have been so open and keen to share all of their knowledge, and I've also been lucky enough to have fantastic team leaders in my career who've been extremely supportive, but also making sure that I have the right opportunities to grow and challenge myself.
Speaker 5:As for my journey into technology in the first place, I guess I've always been into computers and technologies, even when I was little.
Speaker 5:Probably many of us have been the designated family IT support person who fixes the internet when it's not working, restarts the printer when it's acting up, and so on.
Speaker 5:However, I didn't properly consider going into tech up until the point of applying for universities and having to write motivation letters, at which point I realized that that's actually something that I'd like to do as a career, and so I went through my university degree and tried to figure out what it is exactly that I wanted to do, because obviously there's so many different roles that you can go into when working in technology, and that's when I, to an extent, accidentally landed into enterprise architecture as part of my uni degree.
Speaker 5:I was doing an internship before my final year, and one of the jobs that I had applied for was a digital role at Scottish Water, and this placed me in their enterprise architecture team, and that was my first time hearing and learning about the role in general, and I'm very grateful for that experience, as it allowed me to discover a role that combined the sort of IT skills and knowledge, but also things like business engagement, strategy and problem solving, and that turned out to be exactly the kind of job that I wanted to do. And so here I am, five years later, working as an enterprise architect in Social Security Scotland, and it's definitely an organization that I'm happy and proud to be a part of.
Speaker 1:Definitely definitely. And, craig, what led you to to join social security scotland? Was there any anything that stood out to you initially, when you first joined, or drew?
Speaker 4:you to it. Yes, so my journey slightly different. I actually worked in a very large retail store as a sister technician and that's how I got into it and I did that job since 2005. I was actually with the company since 1999. My very first job was audience company since 1999. My very first job was audio and TV after sales with my very first customer was a video. So that shows how far back we're going there.
Speaker 4:And unfortunately the role was made redundant, everything was centralized and it was round about COVID time just after the restrictions had slightly lifted when we started going back into the office when I had the redundancy. So obviously at that point I'm thinking I've been with a company since 1999. What do I do? Where do I go? Now?
Speaker 4:My partner actually works for Transport Scotland, so obviously we looked into the opportunities of joining like a government agency.
Speaker 4:And when I see Social Security Scotland, it was one of these things where my stepdaughter has got learning difficulties, so she requires support and I thought will that be an area that I would like to get into, because my kind of aim is I like helping people. Part of the role within the service desk was you obviously dealt with things like cases and stuff like that. That went wrong and one of the things I'd always say that I treated that as a person at the other end. It wasn't just a ticket in a queue. So the opportunity to obviously to help people into working here like that was a real benefit for me. I did also apply for other jobs previously, wasn't successful, so I was absolutely delighted when the opportunity came to work for Social Security Scotland and, as we'll discuss later, I've even moved a career path again to that, so it was really good yeah, fantastic, and I think the impact that you make on a day-to-day basis to millions of people's lives is just, yeah, it's just incredible.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, thanks for sharing that with us. Craig and roy, I'm keen to know, yeah, your origin story with social security scotland and what led you to joining joining the team at social security scotland yes, I was just looking for a bit of professional development and then growth in that aspect.
Speaker 3:I'd spent a long time as a software developer, lead software developer and data engineer and those sort of roles, and so I was looking for basically just new opportunities, new things to learn, new environments to sort of be a part of, and so, especially when you work in the tech sector and and and the the time I joined last year, I had a lot of friends that were sort of pursuing you know high paying jobs and private sector roles and things like that and or I had been in them a couple of years. We're sort of getting a little bit of burnout. So again, I worked in, uh, public sector. I worked as part of a university before I joined here, so I'd kind of known that. But I also thought I was doing a sort of bit of help for the greater good in terms of like helping, you know, young students and the growth and education and aspects, all that sort of stuff of the area that I live in as well.
Speaker 3:I'm part of a university in the area that I work and yeah, so when I was looking for new roles, social security, social Security Scotland was high presence in Dundee as well. It just kind of caught my eye and then to see the type of growth that they're doing, the type of work that they're doing in the technology sector as well, yeah, caught my interest. And yeah, I was very fortunate to just sort of apply kind of out of the blue, without necessarily applying for anything else either. Actually, yeah. So yeah, I was lucky to get the role. Yeah, applying for anything else either. Actually, yeah. So yeah, I was lucky to get their own. Yeah, happy to be here. It's been a good ride, it's been good fun so far.
Speaker 1:And here we are, and some quite unique as well. You and shabazz actually used to work together, correct?
Speaker 3:uh, yes, yeah, uh, more than work together. Yeah, we actually studied together before we worked together and as well, and yeah, so we both worked at dundee university and dundee university is one of those large enough organizations much like syria, social security, scotland where while we we did quote unquote work together, our past didn't cost too much. Actually, in the day-to-day job we were in different areas. I ended up working more in this sort of research and shabazz worked more in the sort of web development sort of arena, but yeah, we've been learning each other for a long time.
Speaker 2:And Roy was actually one of the people that I reached out to, having worked there to see. You know, you see a lot of these things and people saying an organization is such and such, but I wanted to get it from someone who actually was there in the midst of Engel. Is it actually like this? And you know, I trusted Roy and Roy's feedback on it was a big driving factor for me as well that someone who's in there fed this back. And it must be. It must be true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely still get blamed for that I'll get rid of each other now and, roy, we'll stick with you, obviously we we mentioned the work that social security scotland do and you know how it impacts millions of lives and it has a real societal impact. Can you share some projects that you're currently working on at Social Security Scotland that have impacted society?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, I should probably first say that, by the very nature of like any project in Social Security Scotland, so whether we're working on a back-end payment processing system or you, you know, workflow management type things, they all have an impact on society because of the very nature of what Social Security Scotland is doing. And, like I said as well, it was one of the factors I was kind of considering when I was looking for other opportunities from where I came from and what I was kind of looking to give back. But, yeah, since the fact I started here, I'm really fortunate to work on one of the client-facing tools. I'm really fortunate to work on one of the client-facing tools, so that's the online benefits application websites for the child and adult disability benefits and, I'd say, more recently, we've added support for carer support payment as well. Yeah, and so I've joined Social Security Scotland as a solution architect and my responsibility is designing the backend architecture that facilitates the movement of your application data.
Speaker 3:So, once you've made your submission online, then, yeah, as we add support for more benefits, each has its sort of like own requirements that might result in changes to the way the information flows, and it's part of my job to understand how everything aligns with the needs of the various systems that are ingested into and then get involved in processing that data.
Speaker 3:And I do that by sort of just creating flexible designs and quote-unquote. Long-term focus is how we're meant to look at these things. But yeah, it's very rewarding when you see the type of numbers of applications that are coming through like thousands of months for a combination of a child, either business ability benefit payments you know it's really rewarding to know that I helped facilitate that. And then I'm personally surrounded by this like really detail orientated project management team that helps organize all that work. And then I guess the work that, then, that I'm designing is, you know, implemented by a group of talented developers, and we've got great engineers as well working on the cloud systems that are building all those systems. Yeah, it's a fantastic project team to be a part of, and then knowing that the work we're doing is helping those that can be really vulnerable is really rewarding as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, no, it sounds excellent, roy, and thanks for sharing that with us in regards to some of the projects you're working on. So obviously, career progression is crucial within any role and having the frameworks and that support to progress in your career is crucial, for you know anyone in their craft, shabazz. In terms of career progression, could you speak to some of the opportunities available within Social Security Scotland and the sort of pathways for growth and advancement within your field?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I mean we do what perhaps a lot of organisations will do, like the one-to-ones. We have career conversations here. They're led by us, the individual, with our managers, and that's the focus is how you're getting on. It's not in a sort of military format in the sense it's led by conversation with you how you're getting on. What's not in a sort of military format in the sense it's led by conversation with you how you're getting on, what we can do things around that.
Speaker 2:We do what's called a role model development plan and we're not just paying lip service to that. You build this plan. It is what you're going to do, what your plans are, how that gets you to somewhere, how that's it, rather than just you're doing it. We get regular opportunities for what we call TRSs, so they're temporary roles that you can take on to allow you to gain experience. We've had people who are maybe business analysts or front-facing client services who then wanted to move into business or tech side of roles. So they get these opportunities to do sort of three months, six months temporarily in that role to see how they get on, before we look to fill that, you know, sort of on a permanent basis, and often those individuals are quite successful, whilst others are not, but it gives them a chance to see. You know, I've always had an interest in this but have no experience or qualifications necessarily.
Speaker 2:We've got the training courses and things that people do as well in other organizations, online and in person. But we also offer and make sort of actively encourage people to do things like university degrees that we sponsor so you get to go on a degree, hopefully go off, get a qualification that either you didn't have before or a secondary qualification, perhaps in, you know, data, engineering, data science, whatever it might be from your initial degree. And then we've had sort of examples through that encouragement, you know, giving people that one-to-one chat. You can meet with senior members of the team and ask, can I get a chat with you to help me where I need to be? And that could be top director, deputy directors and so on, and everybody will give you the time and go right. Here's what I think you should do, here's what you can do, and we've had sort of successes that we we talk a lot about, where we've had people, for example, in very business roles, who are now in cyber security specialist roles because they've gone off, gone to training, got a degree through the business, getting time to do that, and their roles are completely different from what they started in the organization.
Speaker 2:And it's all because of those opportunities where we're always trying to see where are you going to be in the next few? Where do you want to be? How can we get you to that point? And, as I say, it just is not just paying lip service to it. It's actively done, it's actively monitored. You need to keep on top of it and even if you thought you had nowhere to go, people have found opportunities from the back of that and areas that they didn't necessarily know.
Speaker 1:And, as I say, whether it's front facing client services, whether dealing with people on the phone, to now in the digital office size, whether dealing in sort of tech roles and AWS specialists and so on and so forth, yeah, that sounds brilliant and the fact that you've got the flexibility to go and trial a new role in a different area of the business is fantastic and I think that sort of gets rid of any stagnation with skills or someone plateauing in their craft and it's fantastic and it's sort of it's actually a perfect segue, actually. Shabnam, to my next question for Craig, who's recently transitioned into a different role at Social Security Scotland Craig, could you discuss this journey, because you obviously most recently joined a new team? But yeah, could you discuss that for us, that journey and sort of any challenges you faced during this transition?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we'd probably say the biggest challenge for myself personally was to make the decision to look at a different role as someone who's worked in the first line IT supports in 2005,. To do anything else would be very much out of my comfort zone. I actually joked with some of my new colleagues today to say it's the first time in around 18 years I've not been able to reset anyone's password. So it's about learning a completely new role and, as what's been said before within SourceCourt of Scotland, there's great opportunity to do that. I would also say that it's within the wider Scottish Government as well, because I know a number of colleagues who have got new roles within the Scottish Government. One of the things we have within Chief Digital Office is job shadowing. We also have training days where you can go into systems like Udemy and Puracyte to learn new skills, and that's where I got into the cyber side, where I was looking at different courses within Udemy to see what I'd be interested in, which led me to apply for the information and risk security advisor role.
Speaker 4:Now, unfortunately, I didn't get the position, but I did pass interview assessment and was placed on a reserve list for nine months. Now, from someone who's not from a information risk security background to actually to pass assessment. I was absolutely over the moon about that and it was a real massive confidence boost for me. A couple of months later, the associate information risk position came up, applied for that and was actually delighted to be offered the role. Now I'm actually glad it went that way because it gave me the opportunity to learn the job, which means when the promotion comes up I'll be in a better position to apply for it. As I say, changing career fast staff for these years has been a challenging one within itself, but it's certainly one I'm looking forward to and can't wait to see the journey.
Speaker 1:My new role will take me Just touching on that. In regards to your personal growth, how do you think this transition has influenced your personal growth and development? Obviously you. You said you've gained more confidence within the role, but can you just touch on that for us?
Speaker 4:Firstly, I'd like to say that speaking about my own personal growth is one of these subjects I've always found to be a difficult one. I've never in the past been particularly career-driven when it comes to chasing promotions and new roles, and unless something really grabs my attention, I'm the type of person that doesn't normally seek change and progression, more so when I've learnt a role inside out and gained a large level of knowledge and expertise. My past IT roles have included training colleagues of different levels of computer literacy, and supporting them has always been a bigger goal than my own growth. That drive is certainly still with me, but since joining Social Security Scotland I've started to think about my own growth and what direction my career should take, and I believe that's down to the culture within Social Security Scotland and Chief Digital Officer in particular.
Speaker 4:Cdo has such a focus on cause progression and there's many different opportunities within the organisation that I felt I had the real support network to get my comfort zone. And look at another area within the IT sector Within my new role I was able to gain certification and was accepted to do a cybersecurity course within Glasgow Cal Uni, something which I did think was out of my reach due to issues with dyslexia at school, and even now I would say that I've been more open about my dyslexia since I've joined Social Security Scotland, due to the support that they give to colleagues with these type of difficulties and such things as assistive technology. So they are a real support network to me, which is, I say, giving me the drive to, to just go for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and that foundation and support sounds incredible. And, craig, what? What advice would you give to someone contemplating a shift or or transition, or seeking career progression? What advice would you give I?
Speaker 4:think this question has two parts. The first is emotional aspect. Think about changing role within the same field or, in some cases, completely new altogether. It certainly is a big step, especially if, like myself, you're already in a job you love or have been doing it for a number of years. Making that jump can be a scary one. My first bit of advice would be ask yourself if you're ready to start that journey. If so, what direction do you want to take?
Speaker 4:Look at roles where transferable skills would cross over. For example, in my situation. I'm not from an information security or cyber background, but the skills I've learned within my service desk role and my previous one, assistance for technician, I was able to make relevant in my application to allow me to be successful in gaining interview. I have to say I've always believed the service desk to be the unsung heroes of IT, as without them the more technical aspects wouldn't happen. I can say that now I've left, but, given what I've learned in my short time within my new team, the work they do in managing risk within the organization, be that new software or benefit releases, for example, is outstanding and they deserve so much credit for the work they do. So I've been so lucky to be part of two amazing teams within Social Security Scotland.
Speaker 4:Second part would be the interview. I can't alliterate enough the importance of using the STAR technique, which is Situation, task, action and Result. Situation task, action and result. This should be used in an interview. However, it can also be used as part of your personal statement, as it allows your answers to have a good flow about them and it gets your examples across well, do mock interviews, as the practice will help you define your answers and hopefully, like myself, stop the use of we and start using the word I. Lastly, if you're unsuccessful, don't be disheartened. Ask for feedback and use that for your next interview and if any of the listeners are going to go for a new role. I wish you luck and hopefully this advice helps you a little bit.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, great advice there. Craig and you really are a success story, and it just goes to show the type of culture that Social Security Scotland breeds and the career progressions that it creates. So thanks, thanks for sharing that with us. Craig anna, we'll come over to you. I'm keen to know what a normal day looks like for you in enterprise architecture, like what. Obviously, every day probably isn't the same, but could you just give us an overview of what a typical day would look like in your position?
Speaker 5:oh they're there. You say definitely not one day looks the same. And I think that's one of the appeals for me personally when working in enterprise architecture is that you do get the opportunity to get involved in various different things, and it can be anything from you know working on strategic initiatives and you know, for example, creating the digital strategy for the organization or potentially some strategies in other areas of the organization, or working on the actual organizational design of how we should be structured, what capabilities we need to have in place to deliver the future goals and objectives of the organization objectives of the organization. You get involved in projects all the time, so the various kind of digital and IT projects that we have. We're always there to sort of support that more strategic side of things, to make sure that we are making the right decisions for the organizations.
Speaker 5:When we are thinking about you know which technologies and applications to introduce, how do we best satisfy the needs that we have in terms of you know the different customer facing technologies that we are implementing, but also the sort of in-house tools and apps that we use to actually run the behind the scenes work in CDO. And then you know on other days you get involved into sort of some of the more detailed and maybe classified as more grunt work. You know you're doing some data crunching and data modeling and that sort of thing, so it really can vary from the very, very high level strategic initiatives that you're working on to the kind of day to day maintenance of some of the architectural information that we have, which then obviously allows us to do some of that more strategic work at the end of the day as well.
Speaker 1:Definitely, and where do you see, or how do you see, the role of evolving in the future? What do you see the future of enterprise architecture going?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean there's this kind of in conversations with people over the years, I guess I've heard various opinions and suggestions of how that might happen. I mean, many people say obviously that with the kind of growing complexity of organizations and growing scope of organizations, it's becoming more important than ever to have enterprise architects in place to be able to actually understand how organizations work, how they hang together, to then be able to successfully, you know, deliver the projects and products that they are producing, doing transformational change over time and actually understanding, you know, why are we doing this change initiative, you know what it's going to deliver us in the future and how it's going to look like down the road in the kind of strategic sense as well. And I definitely, you know, agree with that aspect. It is definitely important from that point of view and on kind of not necessarily the flip side. But another point to kind of mention is I sometimes feel like enterprise architecture is more of a skill than necessarily a particular role. So so there's a lot of skills that enterprise architects have, and what I've seen kind of in past organizations and different teams that I've worked together with is that it's often other roles in the organization that perform some of these skills, that and activities that enterprise architects do, so things like, you know, just strategic forward thinking and planning and understanding the impact of your change initiative before you go ahead and do it in the first place. So sometimes I sort of feel like there are different pockets of enterprise architecture activities and skills scattered across the organization, and I think it's important to recognize that it's actually a couple of years ago I did a presentation in one of the IRM conferences and that was one of the topics that I spoke about, which is that, yes, there are these people doing enterprise architecture activities across the organization and that, instead of sort of limiting that to just being something that enterprise architects do and nobody else is sort of allowed to be doing, I think it's a much better approach to sort of collaborate with these other people across the organization and leverage the knowledge and skills that they have, because one thing that I've noticed in enterprise architecture is that there's never enough resources to do everything that the organization wants to be doing.
Speaker 5:So this sort of allows us to collaborate, as I said, with other parts of the organization and essentially get more resources to do enterprise architecture and actually also leverage knowledge that each one of these people have about the organization, which then in return enriches our sort of view of the enterprise architecture that we have of the organization. But you know, to summarize all of that, as I said, I think it's, you know, increasingly important. And you know the future is ever changing and there are constantly new things coming and appearing and new trends and technologies etc. So enterprise architecture is always going to be very, very important to be able to sort of take the organization in a sort of long-term view, strategically where it wants to be yeah, definitely 100, and thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sort of covering and clarifying that for us, anna, and I'm keen to know as well. Obviously there's a big disparity between men and women within tech roles within the industry. Obviously you're in a tech role yourself. What advice would you give to future generations of women looking to start a career in technology, like if you were starting out in your career? What would you like to hear from like advice, wise, yeah. What advice would you give to future generations of women, would you say?
Speaker 5:yeah, absolutely. I mean, throughout my career it's definitely been evident that, uh, there aren't as many women in technology at the moment as there are men. You know, starting from my university course, where there were probably around 100 men and maybe five women, to then going into my first role in the enterprise architecture team in the previous organization and again, I was the only woman in that team and the same kind of when I started off here in social security Scotland. But I do feel like it's slowly but surely changing over time, and that applies not only to to kind of different genders but all sorts of diversity, whether it's age, gender, kind of different genders, but all sorts of diversity, whether it's age, gender, kind of cultural backgrounds or backgrounds in general. And I see that changing over time slowly and kind of.
Speaker 5:I've experienced that in teams that I've been working in as well, where over time, probably with a little bit of help potentially from myself in terms of pushing some of these ideas and kind of opinions as well that diversity is obviously important, not just kind of from a representative point of view, but also it's it's a major benefit in itself for for organizations to have that diversity, because you know if you have only one type of person working in the team, then you're always going to get a one type of opinion and approach, whereas when you have a diverse team, you get various different opinions, various different approaches to problem solving.
Speaker 5:You know you have people that can challenge the status quo and come up with ideas from a kind of more open-minded approach. So it's it's not just a tick box exercise to have a diverse team. There's actual real benefits in terms of having that. So, but in terms of advice to kind of the the younger generations yeah, I mean, I I advise just not to be put off by that. Things are changing and we are the change that is happening. So the more people just start not caring about the status quo and how things are at the moment and just do what it is that they want to be doing. You know, whatever tech role or any other role that it might be, I think that's the change itself that's going to be evident over time.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for that, anna, and I think, on your point of like diversity of thought, I think diversity of thought and like an eclectic team only breeds like creative problem solving. If every everyone in the team comes from the exact same background, you're not really going to get differences in thought. So it's definitely crucial to build great sort of engineering culture as well. Cool, thank you so much, anna, and then, roy, we'll go. We'll go back to you. In regards to, obviously, we've got a lot of software developers and engineers listening to the podcast and I think they're keen to know what type of technologies and tools you've been working with in your projects at Social Security Scotland. Could you just go through and just give us an overview of some of the tools that your teams or the engineering teams are working with at the moment?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, this is where I might disappoint their expectations. So, basically, as a solutions architect, I day-to-day mostly I'm working out of Microsoft Word visual drawings, doing system designs and our issue tracker for keeping track of the actual project tasks. Although, saying that, I suppose we're waiting on tenterhooks for some of the tooling coming out of enterprise architecture. Actually they're rolling out some tooling that's been streamlining some of our processes here. Yeah, no pressure, pressure, uh, because she, she was involved in that project, but I mean. So we're talking about the systems that I'm designing, though I try to design systems that are also platform agnostic as well, right, so systems that could work anywhere and then be built with any technology as well. So in one sense, it probably doesn't make sense to be too specific here, because that landscape is always changing, but we do primarily work with aws at the moment. So general design aspects of cloud computing that we're always trying to incorporate in our designs is making sure the systems are like loosely coupled. That's our basically go-to. You know whether that's built on apis and things like that. It also gives us the ability to adopt new technologies over time and sort of reduce the impact of, like big systems being changed. We also just try to use like open standards as much as possible as well. So we're basically trying to reduce vendor lock-in right and give us more choice in the future. And then automation is a big thing for us, so we're trying to make you know everything from like testing. We'll make sure we're using stuff that are repeatable tests, building out servers, support, continuous delivery so any kind of tooling that works around that in your platform of choice as well is also going to be a big thing to keep up on top of. Probably the last big one is making sure that you're working on systems that you're designing with scale in mind and, more specifically, I suppose, things like auto-scaling, being able to scale up to demand. As we launched new benefits so alluded to the fact working on a digital portal to support child disability benefits, right and as that launches, the amount of applications that we get in those first couple of weeks people waiting for the opportunity to apply for these things, you know, massively increases over time or massively jumps up at the start and can decrease over time. So, again, that's really important because we need to manage the cost right. We're a public agency, a publicly funded body, so everything we do is always cost-led as well, trying to be efficient there as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think it's important to keep on top of the general best practices rather than any sort of specific tooling.
Speaker 3:Tooling's always going to change over time. I mean, just look at the way, like JavaScript libraries like pop up like every single day, right, and you know we onboard with one thing and it changes to something else and again. So that's why services that I'm designing, you know, like that platform agnostic sort of approach is trying to, where we try to take things and then it allows us to be agile and adopt these new standards and and also actually helps us with our hiring as well, allows us to be flexible there because we can take someone that's maybe, you know, coming along with the latest knowledge, but all that means is that they've got experience in systems and processes that can hopefully be applied elsewhere. So you don't necessarily always have to have the background in dot net development for you to be applicable for the job, as long as you've got the skills and capabilities that allow you to apply the programming paradigms that you kind of want to use to like any sort of service brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thanks for that, roy, and I'm keen to know as well what sort of channels and sources do you use to stay on top of modern tech trends. Is it like discord, youtube, podcasts, such as this? What sources do you use to stay on top, or is there internal communities where you share that information about modern technology trends?
Speaker 3:yeah, so actually we have actually got a scots connect, you know, a work social network of sorts, something. Don't think it's yammer or viva or whatever it's changed its name to now. Yeah, so we have an internal social network here, the social security scotland and wider scottish government outside it's it's it's everyone, and so there's loads of groups there's, you know, excel pure support, I think, is in there, although I'm not sure if they're giving a help or just a shoulder, a cry on with that one, um, but but we also, uh, we have like hill walking groups, board games, computer games, you know, pets, uh, so it's always someone to build a community with there. As I I've alluded to as well, we get a really big push from senior management actually on training and development.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we get that full day a month for our training where you get access to, you know, we get freed access to paid resources, so, whether it's Udemy or whatever that is, so you can do your full AWS cloud, you know, solution architecture courses and assessments and exams and get the certificates there. And then, yeah, for me personally, I'm a bit of a technologist outside of work, so I'm massively into VR and gaming personally, so, yeah, I'm part of the Discord channel building like virtual reality flight sim rigs and all that sort of stuff. So I kind of keep on top of that just because of my nature and kind of keep on top of that just because of my my nature and kind of like where I came from. But yeah, it's great that the organization itself also has those internal peer networks and like management-led emphasis on training is really good as well yeah, definitely those.
Speaker 1:The peer networks, I guess, are crucial in any sort of tech organization. I think the dedicated learning and development days as well is is fantastic, a fantastic benefit, shabazz, we'll go over to you. Could you describe the diversity of teams at social security scotland and the range of roles available within the organization?
Speaker 2:okay, uh, well, where. Where do I start? I think in one of my earlier answers I've touched on sort of the various roles. We have roles that are tech heavy, from engineers. We have business analysts that are not so tech heavy. Potentially they have an experience of technology which helps in some of the areas. We've got content creators, we've got customer advisors so it's not all tech and people can often move from one area to another, one area to another.
Speaker 2:Following on from sort of anna's comments about diversity, again we have people from all walks of life. It's quite a diverse mix of ethnicities, backgrounds and life experiences and they all bring something to the table and it's quite a family atmosphere. It's not one of those places where you know people don't want to talk to each other and they keep to themselves and try and avoid eye contact absolutely not. People genuinely, you know, sort of want to get to know each other and learn from others. I've learned so, so much about others. Our people here, without a doubt, are one of our most valuable assets, without question. We even had a session with a colleague on deaf awareness not long after I'd started and I learned some sign language from them and I helped them sort of bring you closer to understanding others needs, theirs on a personal level and generally in the wider world, where you sort of realize. Well, my interactions with deaf people may be being limited, but I feel sort of more comfortable. I would help them, even help me understand what my own daughter, who has hearing issues, sort of how to support her better with her health and well-being, and and that's not something I ever thought I would get from, from a place of work, you know, never in my life and people are here because they want to be.
Speaker 2:It's very rare to see an organisation all moving forward towards a singular goal and aim, but we're all working for that common good. Our mantra of dignity, fairness and respect is perfect for the organisation. We absolutely day-to-day discussions, are driven by that. We're doing this or we're not going to do that because that might pose a risk to payments being not made on time. That's not the way we're going to do it. We have to think a different approach and you can see why people are so keen to sort of join us on this journey.
Speaker 2:It's not often you get a chance to be a part of something that literally impacts people's lives, and plenty of organizations may claim that and they may very well do that in some way. But here at social security scotland, with our focus on the person and their needs, it's certainly unique from my experience and it's something I'm extremely sort of proud to be a part of. I make no secret of either. I tell people very proud, proudly, of where I work and I think someone once asked me if I was earning a commission for speaking so passionately about social security, but which I don't, by the way, but it's just how much I love this job and I think it's. You know. Sorry, there's probably a longer answer than you were looking for, but I think it's. One of his huge sort of benefits and assets that we have here at Social Security is the diversity of our people and what they bring to the table.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a perfect way to wrap today's podcast episode up. Shabazz, roy Craig and Anna, I just want to say a big thank you for joining us on the podcast today and talking through your time at social security scotland, obviously craig your transition into a different role, roy, the projects you're working on and, anna, highlight of your role in enterprise architecture as well. Before we wrap up today's episode, I ask all of my guests this if you had to describe social security scotland at your time at social security scotland with one word, what one word would that be? Shabazz? I'm going to start with you and then I'll do the rounds, so I'm sorry for picking on you first, shabazz, but yeah, one word. How would you describe it?
Speaker 5:one word amazing, amazing, brilliant anna, you're putting us on the spot here always with these one word questions.
Speaker 4:I'll say um diverse that's nice craig I'm going to be cringy and you're going to use the word family, because I do feel that we are a family all working together fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, craig and roy. Finally, one word.
Speaker 3:Rewarding. I got a lot of time to think about it there. I think I've fixed the bill.
Speaker 1:Rewarding Brilliant. Thank you so much, roy. Well Shabazz, roy Craig and Anna, I really really appreciate your time on the podcast today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5:Thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to subscribe to the show on Spotify and Apple Music, leave a rating and a review and make sure you're also following us on social media. Our Twitter handle is at HackerJobHQ. Feel free to share whatever you're listening to on Instagram and tag us so we can reshare it. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
