Unlocking a Career in Data Vault awaits

Unlocking ‘mystery’ of Data Vault transformed Chris’ career outlook

A summer work placement for physics student Chris Fisher has developed into an exciting career working as a Data Engineer.

Twenty-three-year-old Chris joined Datavault earlier this summer – less than two years after spending his summer holidays at the specialist consultancy.

The University of Portsmouth graduate was pointed to his future career path after he signed up with SEPnet – the South East Physics Network – in 2018.

Two years later he has already played a major role in developing the company’s ground-breaking AutomateDV software, which helps any business looking to take advantage of cloud-based data analytics by building modern data warehouses.

Chris admits apart from his interest in astrophysics, which developed during his GCSE and A-level studies, he had “little idea” of what kind career he wanted to follow when he was younger.

But now he is working at the cutting edge of one of the most dynamic and important areas of the modern economy.

Chris is the latest graduate to expand Datavault’s young, forward-thinking team that helps large enterprise clients develop modern cloud-based data platforms whether migrating existing legacy data warehouses – or create new ones from scratch, quickly and efficiently.

SEPnet is made up of nine universities in the South East.

It aims to place physics students with companies offering suitable work placements using the subject’s disciplines with a view to providing suitable graduate career opportunities.

Chris explained: “At the beginning of my second year I decided to do a summer placement, mainly in a coding-related area – such as data science or software development.

“SEPnet gave a presentation at my university. I registered not long after and then waited for the applications to open.”

“I had already applied for a number of summer placements with big companies like Shell and BP, and a few defence companies.

“I applied to Datavault through SEPnet and, luckily, Neil read my CV and offered me a placement.”

Chris, who had worked as a lifeguard at a swimming pool in Street during his gap year, joined Datavault’s team temporarily in the summer of 2018 – having completed two modules in coding during his first year at University of Portsmouth, studying physics with astrophysics and cosmology,

Chris said: “Learning to code has opened more careers doors than I expected. I wish I had been introduced to it earlier in school or college.

“At school, I was interested in how there were planets and stars in the galaxy and what we could learn about them, without ever visiting them, and the laws that governed them.

“Furthermore, I feel like physics, as a subject, has taught me key problem-solving skills and persistence in tackling difficult problems and learning new things.

“Going into the field of data warehousing, having prior knowledge of code was definitely helpful.

“However, more importantly, I feel problem-solving skills and eagerness to always learn and understand new concepts are more valuable.”

Having self-taught elementary coding skills in Python as well, he was given the task of creating a theoretical programme with certain functionality.

“It was my first introduction to SQL and Neil gave me a lot of help learning about Python and SQL,” said Chris.

After his third year at Portsmouth, Chris’s appetite for learning more about developing data platforms had increased – and he returned to Datavault for a second placement.

“I nagged Neil a bit to see if he was doing another summer placement,” he added. “And this time my work was more about using the Data Vault 2.0 method and SQL-based.

“I focused more on data platform design and building a Data Vault using data from a Snowflake database.

“Our dbtvault tool spawned from that summer project. Datavault’s Alex Higgs took it and developed it as a piece of open source software. It started as a demo.”

The confidence flowing from that success saw Chris enter his fourth and final year to complete his master’s degree at University of Portsmouth.

“At the end of my fourth year when I graduated, Neil offered me a position,” he said.

“Now I am working as a consultant and every day is different.”

So less than six months after joining Datavault, is the data world an oyster for the astrophysics student, who was fascinated by the big wide universe out there?

Chris said: “My coding ability has greatly improved and continues to do so. I am learning new techniques and constantly looking to improve it.

“There are so many aspects of data that I didn’t know existed before I came to work at Datavault. But it’s great to learn and try to understand these new things.

“I never really knew what I wanted to do while I was at school or college,” said Chris, “although after my GCSE’s I did think I might like to be a marine biologist. But that did not last long.

“This company is at a key point in its growth – if we continue to do well keeping our clients happy and continuing to win new business. I can’t see why I would want to do anything else.

“My plans are to stay with this company and grow with it.”