Nine years of OBC: Apprentices, Graduates, Career Changers

OBC is close to hitting a decade, turning 9 years old this October – where has the time gone? What started as four founders with a vision has grown into a team of 100 people now, helping shape how the railway and other critical national infrastructure is monitored and inspected. Machine learning engineers, software developers, hardware specialists, commercial, project and account managers, support staff and more are based at our Bristol HQ and our engineering base in Derby, all very much working as one team.

Nine years on from four founders, the OBC team is now over 100 people.

Alongside the many industry experts we have at OBC, a good number of the people who make OBC what it is today first walked through our doors at the very start of their careers, and that’s something we’re extremely proud of. Our ambition is to share knowledge, expertise, innovative thinking and smart ways of working that help give new industry entrants a solid platform on which to build their career.

Many of those early starters have since worked their way up through the business over the years, and are now the ones training and bringing through the next wave of joiners. Given our company name, it feels extremely fitting that these things have come full circle.

Out of the team of nearly 100, about 30 began their careers at OBC – from school and college leavers, apprentices, graduates, PHD Students, alongside part-time interns and work experience students, all of whom are contributing their own skills and bringing fresh ideas to the table.

Growing the future workforce

Spotting talent early has been part of the OBC story almost from the very beginning. We recruit for aptitude and attitude, then find the right route for each person to grow with us – whether that’s an apprenticeship or a selected part-time course – so they learn the OBC way of working from day 1.

Our apprenticeships and school and college leavers span finance, software, hardware and site engineering and work towards their relevant qualifications during a working week. Putting that theory straight into practice on live projects gives them hands-on experience and a real head start in their careers.

Our first apprentice software engineer, Harvey, was recruited in 2018, not long after the company was founded. He’s grown with the business every step of the way, played a crucial part in developing AIVR into what it is today, and now leads teams and projects as a Senior Software Engineer.

“I didn’t expect an apprenticeship to turn into eight years and a senior role, but OBC has always backed people to grow. While I was at college, I was learning on the job from experts in their fields who were incredibly supportive and always happy to share what they knew, and now I get to do the same for the people joining us. It’s been great to watch the company evolve over the years, and to have been part of that.” Harvey Lewis, Senior Software Engineer.

Harvey Lewis, Senior Software Engineer, who joined OBC as our first apprentice software engineer in 2018.

Graduates and work experience

Our graduates join us from a wide range of courses and begin in roles across software, finance, account management and more. They bring fresh thinking straight from their degrees, allowing them to be productive very quickly and learn first-hand from their managers and wider team.

“Joining One Big Circle has been a great experience. The team has been incredibly supportive in helping me get to grips with both the commercial and technical sides of the business. It’s been a brilliant place to grow, both professionally and personally, with plenty of opportunities to take on new challenges.” Eliza Prosser, Commercial and Quality Associate.

Eliza Prosser works across the commercial and technical sides of the business as our Commercial and Quality Associate.

We also open our doors to work experience students, from school pupils joining us for a week to university students on longer placements. During their time here, they shadow experts in the field to learn firsthand, and gain experience from across the business. For most, it’s the first look behind the scenes of the railway and technology industries, and hopefully proof that it’s a great place to build a career.

Many different backgrounds

Alongside these early routes into careers, we also welcome many people who are changing careers at a later stage. Across the team, our career changers come from a range of backgrounds – hospitality, retail, care sector, recruitment, police, floristry, diving and more. Many have made the active decision to find the time to retrain or upskill before applying for roles in the industry, and we value both the experience they bring with them and the dedication it takes to make that kind of change.

Our career changers have come from hospitality, retail, the police, floristry, diving and more.

The OBC Alchemy

As we’ve referenced in previous papers, alongside our newer joiners, we have a real depth of specialist expertise across the team, with hundreds of years of combined experience in our core capabilities in intelligent video. These specialists are at the forefront of their field, ensuring OBC is always at the cutting edge in our space, and that these skills and knowledge are being embedded in the next generation.

It’s this mix of skills and experience that has helped us keep building our services year on year, delivering at the highest, most exacting standards that our customers, partners and our own team expect and can depend upon.

Learning on the job in our Bristol lab, where AIVR hardware is built and tested.

The diversity of backgrounds, the range of skills and the deep expertise all come together to create the OBC spark – and something that we take time to recognise as another year passes on the OBC story. It means we also have a lot of fun together too as our calendar of social events, clubs and activities is testament to!

Looking ahead

As we head into completing our first decade, we’ll be continuing to build on our brilliant team and provide opportunities that encourage people into the rail and technology sector – whether that be through apprenticeships, work experience, welcoming new graduates or those with new skills and ambitions. We send a big thank you to everyone who has started their careers with us, and to the colleagues who have shown them the ropes – here’s to many more years of ingenuity, collaboration and success.

Interested in an apprenticeship, graduate role, work experience or a career change into rail technology? Get in touch at jobs@onebigcircle.co.uk