A day in the life of James Rodwell-Shield

My alarm goes off and I…

Have a couple of glasses of water, check to see who the current prime minister is and then usually head off to the gym for around 40 mins. If it’s not raining I’ll cycle in to work, otherwise it’s the northern line from Tooting to Bank.

I’m responsible for…

The implementation of FinancialForce on the P4G programme. This means overseeing requirements, development, testing, and deployment of all things related to FinancialForce. Also, I sit with the business teams to prioritise future product enhancements/development.

I also help with any Sequel Eclipse issues that come up, as I used to work at Sequel earlier in my career.

My first job was...

A morning paper round in the suburbs of Leicester when I was 13. Looking back, I don’t think the ten pound a week wage was worth it…

My typical day involves…

The morning is usually full of meetings, including team stand-ups, development stand ups and progress reports. Then I might have an hour or so to get some work done, usually reviewing requirements/testing, before another round of meetings in the afternoon. These are normally with the different finance and ops teams. It’s tough to balance the amount of meetings vs actually completing the work, but this should (hopefully) improve over time.

My most memorable work moment is...

The Christmas party at the Natural History Museum. It was surreal to have such a large event there.

The most challenging part of my job is...

Keeping on top of current development/testing of FinancialForce, whilst trying to look ahead and to create a medium to long term roadmap for future improvements. With the P4G 1A full go-live in October, a lot of time has been spent looking after the new users and addressing any hypercare issues.

The best part of my job is...                        

Two things: the people, and getting exposure to a lot of different processes/technologies. The people, both in my team and at DUAL in general are great – always very helpful and informative. 

After work I...

Cycle home, weather permitting, and then depending on the day play 6-a-side football, start cooking dinner, or go food shopping. I will usually go for a few drinks with my team once a week at one of the pubs near 1CP. I’ll try and read for 20/30 minutes to relax before bed.  

If I didn’t work in insurance, my plan B would be...

Probably a maths/economics teacher. Growing up I also thought I might end up in teaching, so that would be my plan B.