I am a Back End Engineer building payments infrastructure at Thought Machine, a FinTech company developing cloud native core banking software. We license this software to various commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Chartered, to name a few. When I joined Thought Machine in 2019, the company was still a relatively small start up that could barely process 15 payments per second. Since then I have worked on scaling out our payments and balance processors to handle upwards of 15,000 payments per second. We are now one of the United Kingdoms most recent FinTech unicorns (a start up with a $1 billion valuation).
2015
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GCSE and IB
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What did you like most about studying Computer Science?
Learning to code. Once you know how to code you feel like you have the power to build anything.
What did you go on to study or do after leaving Hockerill?
Computer Science with Industrial Placement
What attracted you into a Computer Science profession?
Competitive salaries, complex problems and competitive salaries.
What helped you getting to where you are now?
I went to The University of Exeter and did an industrial placement in my 3rd year at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This was a valuable experience because it not only got a well-known company name on my CV but more importantly it showed me that I did not want to work at a large bureaucratic company, leading me to join a small start up. I also participated and came 2nd place in JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Code for Good competition. These hackathons are a great way to display your skills and pull an exciting all nighter with some really smart people.
What advice would you give to students interested in Computer Science?
To be a good developer you do not need to be taught Computer Science by a teacher, a lecturer or anyone. The easiest way to learn is to try and build something yourself, like a website or an app, and there is a wealth of information available online to assist you in this.
Other websites
| https://github.com/jackmarsh | As a back end engineer I don't have any visible front ends to share but you can follow some of my work and interests on github. |