Poppy Data Science Graduate at Lloyds Banking Group

Poppy Data Science Graduate

Poppy

Data Science

Placement (10 Months+)

Lloyds Banking Group

Stand out structure

The nature of the scheme being rotational stood out. It reassured me that I’d be supported throughout and would also get good exposure to different teams – which was a big plus.

The package was attractive

The application was an easy decision, the graduate scheme looked really strong, and the package was better than others I had seen so I didn’t hesitate to apply. But as the process went on, in the final round of interviews, at the assessment centre, I realised just how much I’d really like to work at LBG.

An exciting mix

My day-to-day is a mix of research, presentations, writing up documentation and more technical work. Mainly coding in Python, using Pycharm or Jupyter notebooks for rough work or guided presentations, some SQL/Teradata and a fair bit of GitHub enterprise.

The best project so far

I’ve worked on some installable Python libraries that we’ve built from scratch that serve an immediate purpose and have been really useful to other teams. That has been very rewarding.

Training every step of the way

The first part of our grad scheme is a 6-8 week Bootcamp which is a great foundation for the work we do. I’m also currently working through a GCP ACE (Associate Cloud Engineer) qualification and will shortly be starting an Artificial Intelligence program through Stanford University.

Ethical AI

In my previous team, I helped a lot in making the guidance and tooling much more understandable and user-friendly as well as pushing a couple of our projects forward when collaborating with other teams. In my current team, Voice Analytics in Natural Language Engineering, I’ve done a lot of research and exploratory coding which is helping to set some of the direction of the project.

My world beyond work

I’ve joined the Deep Learning, Natural Language, and Graph guilds, and attended the talks they put on, and I’m also on the Data Science Women committee.