We find out what life is like as a Graduate at mx51. Alaxan Kol recently completed the graduate program and is now an Integration Engineer.
Tell us about your journey so far at mx51?
My journey at mx51 has been nothing short of fun. In my first rotation, I joined the servicing team. Working in this team was great, I learned how to troubleshoot various issues that would come with a product. On my second week of phone calls, I had the greatest opportunity to resolve a customer issue and handle a 3 hour phone call with a not-so tech-savvy merchant. This was a highlight.
During my first rotation, my manager would hand me a device with an app on it, and tell me “Play with this and try break it”. So I tried - except I didn't have a clue what I was looking at. I just pressed every button I could with the hope of something breaking and it did (surprisingly). This was my first experience working with a POS application.
From here I joined the Delivery Team, focusing on the delivery of products. I learned about the relationship we have with Westpac and our other vendors. There were various conversations going on with our partners and conversations internally; learning about how to deliver a product on time, meeting requirements set out and identifying potential blockers for a product to be released.
Following this experience, I joined the Integrations & QA team and was also introduced to the Development team. After a year, I’ve since completed my graduate program and am now in the team as an Integration Engineer.
What does your day to day look like?
mx51 has been flexible with my role and allowed me to shape my own responsibilities. My day to day tasks involve maintaining communication with our POS partners and ensuring our partners are not experiencing any issues with development work. I also communicate with different teams including the Support, Developer, Product or Delivery teams to find out when we might be able to offer a new product to our partners. I'm often researching and finding out ways we can improve the experience for our partners and uses of our product.
What are your key learnings to date?
I’ve learned many things during the program, and one of the things that stand out is communication is key when collaborating. There are various stages a product will go through, and it's important to understand what that product is, how we support the product and how we market the product. It's also important to ask questions (there’s no such thing as a silly question).
What skills do you need?
I came out of university with a Bachelor of Information Systems, majoring in Network Security and Mobile Networking. So a degree in the IT field is good, but it isn't necessary. I think it's more important to have good communication skills; my day to day tasks involve communicating with people from different companies and teams.
Which mx51 core value resonates most with you?
The mx51 core values that resonate with me are ownership, customer obsession, trust and respect. I believe underlying all of the mx51 core values is empathy and understanding. I usually like to break down and analyse a situation before giving advice or feedback.
Career highlights?
mx51 has shown me the ins and outs, from the support side to the delivery of products. With that knowledge, I’m sharing that with everyone within the company, to close the knowledge gap and ensure everyone understands what the next step is. I'm looking forward to the next big thing for the company, and working more closely with our partners.
What do you love about working at mx51?
I definitely love the culture here and more importantly how everyone works well with each other. I love how agile we are and how quickly the team works together to solve problems to address customer pain points. At mx51, the team have been very supportive and the people I work with continue to encourage me to develop my skills and help me with my career progression.
If you're interested in an exciting career at mx51, get in touch.