Team Hawk-Eye: The People Podcast, Series 2, Episode 4
From Software Engineering Placement to Graduate Scheme: Joshua’s journey.
Hi there — I’m Will (Head of Talent Acquisition — Global Operations) and I’m back with the next instalment of Team Hawk-Eye’s The People Podcast & Blog.
I recently caught up with Joshua Rhode, who completed a 12-month Software Engineering Placement Scheme with Hawk-Eye back in 2020/21. Joshua loved it so much that after completing his final year at University, returned to Hawk-Eye earlier this year on our Graduate Scheme!
Hear about how Joshua’s 12-month industry placement with Hawk-Eye helped him flourish in his final year at university right through to his return to our Graduate Scheme below! 🎓
For more behind the scenes with Joshua, keep reading…
10 Questions with…
- Name: Joshua Rhode
- Current job title and department: Graduate Software Engineer working for the Analytics team. We provide analytical coaching applications for various sports. We also deploy software to allow our internal operators to correct anomalies in our player and ball-tracking data.
- Tell us about how your role has changed throughout your time at Hawk-Eye:
For the first half of my placement year, I was placed in the SMART team who produce all the video review technology for various sports, for example: VAR in football. This is where I was introduced to C++ and given some great knowledge by my seniors to improve my coding quality in this language. This is the technology I have used consistently since then. In this role, there was a high-precedent on maintaining older software by fixing bugs and other related maintenance. Occasionally, there would be new features and new applications to add to the replay technology sphere as well. In the second half of my placement, I joined what has now become the Analytics team. This was during the very early development of their software. In this role, there was a much faster development cycle and the emphasis was on delivering new features and applications as quickly as possible. After completing my degree, I returned on a permanent role with the Analytics team. I was able to join on a permanent role, rather than a grad scheme, largely due to my impact during my placement year. My role feels similar to before. However, now that the applications have progressed significantly since I left, there is more maintenance required on the software. I also feel more supported as the team now has a Product Manager and two new developers who are always available to provide a helping hand.
4. How did your placement year at Hawk-Eye impact your final year at university and career?
There were two notable skills that really helped with my final year at University: time management and debugging. During my placement, I had to ensure that my tasks were planned out for the day and that the time was allocated correctly in terms of priority. When applying this to my final year dissertation, I was able to break down my coding requirements into prioritised segments so that it was possible to achieve each milestone without self-inflicting unnecessary stress along the way. For example, I successfully reached a minimum viable product by early February in my final year which gave me over a month to complete all the lower priority requirements. Effective time management meant I never had to suffer any all-nighters for my dissertation. In terms of debugging, my placement year taught me how to tackle bugs in my code effectively and how to do good research into finding the root of the issue. When it came to coding my final year project, I was a lot quicker at sifting through documentation and finding the relevant articles to help me with any hurdles.
5. What are your main responsibilities?
Most of my day is spent working through tickets. Tickets are coding tasks that can be picked up which contribute towards the development of our projects. These can range from adding new features to fixing bugs.
6. What key projects are you currently focusing on?
One of the team’s key projects is our Scrubbing Tool software. This application ingests our player and ball tracking data from various football games in live time. It displays video footage from different camera angles, as well as 3D rendering (animation) of the tracking. This allows operators to use the mouse and keyboard to explore the 3D recreation by changing angles and perspectives on the software. On top of this, there is a sophisticated timeline which displays important events and issues that have been flagged in the tracking data. The combination of these aspects allows the operators to correct anomalies in the tracking data. A basic example would be to correct a player’s detected jersey number. The ‘scrubbed’ data can then provided to interested third parties for their own various reasons and objectives. We have other projects that are based heavily on the same technology as Scrubbing Tool. However, their purposes are very different. They all take in player and ball tracking from other sports and are sold as coaching software. Third-party clients can purchase this and use the technology to help their coaching process and find ways to improve their players’ performances. There are useful graphs and statistics provided by the app to aid coaches in this process.
7. What do you love the most about football?
I love the fact it feels like an international language. It connects people from all over the world and provides a way for spectators to temporarily escape any issues in their lives. It feels like one of the biggest communities in the world. I have met countless people through love of football. I have also played football for most of my life and it never fails to boost my mood.
8. What’s your favourite moment in the history of football?
I am a Chelsea fan so one of my favourite moments is when Chelsea were awarded a goal from goal-line technology in 2014 against Liverpool. This is because it felt like revenge for Livepool’s ‘ghost’ goal in the Champion’s league semi-final in 2005. The reason it was seen as a ghost goal was because nobody could definitively confirm whether it had crossed the line or not. With the introduction of goal-line technology since then, it meant we could get the fair goal to counteract the controversial decision that benefitted them so much back then.
9. What do you enjoy most about working at HEI?
I like the fact that there is a very supportive and friendly atmosphere from co-workers. If I am ever stuck on a task or needing more clarification, my teammates do not hesitate to jump straight on a call and see how they can help. This high engagement means I can make fast improvements to my skills and understanding of the codebase.
10. What advice would you give to anyone applying?
Firstly, I would advise to showcase their potential; ability to adapt and ability to learn quickly. The company is not necessarily looking for someone who has already mastered everything. There is more of a precedent to find an applicant that shows good promise and can be trained quickly and can learn very efficiently on the job. This is a valued trait because no matter how much you already know, there will be a huge amount of information and knowledge that you will need to ingest in a rapid fashion over the course of the job. More importantly, it is essential to show that you are personable and can work well in a team. The company is not necessarily looking for a robot who churns out code that keeps to themselves and who isn’t communicating or trying to build relationships with the people they are working with. The team you are applying for will want to find someone who has good communication skills and is adaptive to a range of social work situations. So, I would say this is a great trait to show off.
At Hawk-Eye we offer a range of Software Engineering Placement and Graduate Schemes. To find out more and apply, see below:
