Career Profile

Peter Smiley, Senior Java/J2EE Engineer, DOB: 1978

How many years have you been in IT?

6

Did you do a degree, if so, which type and where?

None

What was your 1^st job in IT?

Software Engineer for Ericsson

Would you recommend grads to travel after college or get work experience first?

Get work experience first and travel as part of job

Have you worked abroad and if so, where and for how long?

Switzerland             – 2 months

Sweden             - 6 months

Finland - 1 month

Saudi Arabia            - 6 months

England            - 8 months

What was your biggest career break and why?

Getting job in Ericsson because I found it quite hard to get my first job

Describe your current role in brief.

Develop enhancements to the core of a billing software platform.

Title                             – Senior Software Engineer

Industry                      - Telecommunications,

Size of company            - 13,000

Size of team                - 6

Report to (title)  - Group Leader

Technologies / applications you use.

Java, J2EE, WebSphere, WebLogic, Oracle, Eclipse, Ant, CruiseControl.

Are you currently on Permanent or Contract status?

Contract

Which do you prefer in general and why?

Contracting as it is more flexible

What trends do you see happening in the next 18 months - 3 years in your specific area of expertise?

Emergence of SOA into mainstream market place

What advice would you give to grads / what would you have done differently if you could “reel back the years” career wise?

Nothing

What areas of technology would you advise less experienced IT people to focus / get trained up in the coming years?

Web Services, Tapestry, hibernate, spring, ejb3

Out of 10, are you happy in your choice of career in IT and if so why?

9 because it like to design and build things

What is your favourite top 1-2 technical resource websites ?

The server side

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