Continuing on with introducing you to the team that make up The Unite Group. Next up we introduce Rob. We recently had a chat with Rob about his role…
Growing up, what did you want to be?
I always knew I would work in something Technology related, my family on my fathers side have been engineers or similar going back at least five generations. For about a decade I thought I would likely work in the AV field, and did a fair amount of work doing lighting or sound, starting at a youth theatre, and continuing into working in bars and clubs.
What is your role at The Unite Group and how did you end up where you are now?
At The Unite Group I am a Senior Service Engineer. In my role, I mostly work on projects. I started with Unite as an Apprentice, shadowing another engineer for a bit, and then working on the Helpdesk. Since then as the company has grown I have completed various qualifications to get to my role within the company.
What does a typical day look like at The Unite Group?
Most days start with checking the health of a few services that I manage. I’ll run though any alerts that have been generated overnight, I’ll then create support tickets for anything that requires further looking into. I also run a few health tests on demo networks that we have at the office.
From there I then move onto emails. After which it really changes on a day to day basis. I mostly work on projects and installs now. So off to client sites for installs, or planning work.
What is your most and least favourite part of the job?
My favourite part of the job has got to be the process of taking apart and re-building a system to trace down a particular fault. I’ll normally do this when there is an actual ongoing issue that needs resolved, but this can also be done when we’re onboarding a new client with limited documentation, to make sure that we can fully understand any issues that might come up.
My least favourite part of my job would be all the paperwork around the jobs. When I worked at the NHS many years ago, one of the medical leads often said “midwife means with wife, not with computer” and I can now relate.
What is your greatest achievement?
I’m very happy how I left a small theatre I volunteered at. When I started, the entire society had a budget of around £300, and about 5 working lights. It was always a fun challenge to get a production on with what we had available.
Over the next 4 years myself, and a new committee managed to improve the situation somewhat. I took over as head of the technical side of the theatre, and managed to build up that side of things, training up new technicians, and managing shows on a weekly basis.
By the time I left the society had working lights, sound system, and a budget plan for fixes and replacement going out for a decade.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
If you can’t explain it you don’t understand it. I always try to understand something well enough to be able to explain it simply to someone else. Often this is reduced to explain to a five year old, which while entertaining may take quite a long time.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?
In 10 years time, I can see my role getting a bit more specialised within The Unite Group. I’ve already started working on some more niche things and I hope to grow into more of these. One of the areas I am currently expanding my knowledge into is Cyber Essentials. I am looking forward to seeing where this takes my role within The Unite Group. As well as what opportunities it will offer to our customers to protect their organisations further against possible cyber attacks.
How do you unwind outside of work?
When left to my own devices there is nothing nicer than a glass of whisky and a good book.
Want to learn more about how Rob and The Unite Group can help you with your business technology needs, contact us on, 0191 466 1050.
