Hi, I’m Will O’Shea and I work as a team solution architect at RDT.
After graduating from university with a maths degree I started my IT career working for Lloyd’s of London. I had a good seven years there, which gave me a useful grounding in insurance knowledge. After that I had a short spell at Enron, followed by 11 years at Barclays Capital, before deciding to leave the rat race and find a more local job.
I joined RDT in 2014 as a senior software engineer and after a couple of years I became the lead software engineer in one of our agile teams. I then applied for the role of team solution architect (TSA) because I felt I would like to contribute more to the architectural direction of the company.
As a TSA I work within a scrum team adding functionality to our product Equator, but I am also a member of the architecture team. This helps me ensure that we are building solutions in alignment with the architectural direction of the company. Being a TSA still involves a lot of development, mostly in C#, but I’m also part of discussions about product and technical roadmaps, which is interesting and gives a good balance.
I’ve worked on many projects at RDT. I spent about a year working on Landscape, our policy and claims administration system, and then moved onto a project to build an internal web interface for configuring and deploying our applications through different environments. I then went to work on Equator, our centralised rating platform.
I really enjoy working at RDT, it’s a friendly place with a good atmosphere. The office space is great and the pool table is a bonus! Having a local job makes life easier, it’s great not having to travel to London every day. There is also a big focus on quality here, which gives us a good sense of satisfaction and pride in what we build.
Outside of work I love music and have played guitar and piano in a few bands. I have also volunteered on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway for the past eight years and have recently passed out as a steam engine driver there.