Darren S, Technology Director, English, Cambridge
Life at Cambridge
In my career, I have always wanted to do challenging things and solve difficult problems. This is what I was brought in to do - to help change an organisation that was not previously particularly technical and was primarily focused on managing third parties. My focus is enabling my teams, and other teams in Technology, to be successful in supporting the overall business strategy and objectives.
So, that covers things from making sure we have sufficient budgets and enough of the right kind of resources to ensuring that my team have got the appropriate salary, and the right development plans. Helping other teams understand how to work with us, and vice versa is another important part of the job.
Our approach in Technology centres around actually asking customers what their problems are, and then delivering solutions that genuinely fix those problems.
Crucially, we like to encourage solutions from within rather than top down. Colleagues have the freedom to choose the right solution for any given problem. Take our core platform in English - a virtual learning environment called Cambridge One. We knew that we needed to provide a better digital service to meet the emerging needs of our customers. But we weren't quite sure how we were going to do it. There was a lot of new stuff involved that we had never really had to deal with before.
Rather than spend two years working out what the solution should be, then trying to deliver something, we actually created a number of agile teams. The focus was on working with customers and with the business - collaborating together to find the answers to tricky questions and deliver value quickly. We used agile methodologies to deliver in small chunks, and deliver them quickly. It was a good thing we chose that approach, because COVID came along and, all of a sudden, everything went digital in the world of learning and education - and we were ready and prepared.
In terms of technology, we really are doing some of the most exciting technical projects in our industry. We are using artificial intelligence (AI) in many areas. We've used it for speech dialogue, so that you can speak to a computer as if you're having a conversation. It will tell you how well you're doing and where you've gone wrong.. Through AI, you can rely on a marking machine to deliver results fast with accuracy and consistency, and at scale.
Another interesting field is developing really engaging games for young children. We've got some great videos of kids just absolutely loving playing our games, and getting truly involved. It is hugely satisfying to get feedback from teachers on how much their classes get out of these games.
It's always good to understand that what you're doing at work actually has meaning. What I'm doing is giving life opportunities to young people who either themselves, or their parents, want to have a better life. Satisfaction comes from knowing that you are changing people's lives through the products and services you're providing.
