Headshot of a young man in smart casual clothes looking into the camera in a modern corporate setting at Liberty IT, Belfast.
Andrew Coulter. Image: Connor McKenna/Siliconrepublic.com

From company intern to software engineer: Why go for a graduate programme?

9 Oct 2019

Andrew Coulter discusses his internship with Liberty IT and why he decided to return to the company through its graduate programme.

When a company treats its workers well, they’re far more likely to stick around. That has certainly been the case for Andrew Coulter, an associate software engineer at Liberty IT.

While studying computer science at college, Coulter applied to undertake a placement year at the company. During that time, he was introduced to many new cutting-edge technologies that he never would have gotten the chance to interact with at university.

“When you apply and get accepted, you join the graduate academy, which is basically six weeks of training on the common technologies used here, which helps you get quickly up to speed with things,” he said.

In fact, he enjoyed his internship so much that he decided to return to Liberty IT when he was finished his degree. He joined the company’s graduate programme, where his role now involves working with AWS, Node.JS and machine learning tech.

“I’d say the most important skill for working at Liberty IT is the ability to continuously learn. There’s a lot of new technologies here, most of which universities haven’t quite got around to teaching yet,” Coulter added.

“So it’s very important that you have the ability to learn new things and to be continuously learning, as things change so quickly in this environment.

“The thing I like most about working at Liberty IT is the technology, and there’s plenty of different types of work. There’s DevOps work, there’s front-end work, and working as an associate or an intern, you get exposure to all of them.”

Watch the video above to find out what else Coulter had to say about the graduate programme at Liberty IT.

Lisa Ardill
By Lisa Ardill

Lisa Ardill joined Silicon Republic as senior careers reporter in July 2019. She has a BA in neuroscience and a master’s degree in science communication. She is also a semi-published poet and a big fan of doggos. Lisa briefly served as Careers Editor at Silicon Republic before leaving the company in June 2021.

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