Writing for Sage — a graduate perspective
“Content design”. When I first heard these words, I immediately thought, “isn’t that a social media job?”. I soon realised how wrong I was.
My name is Joe Jackson and I work as a graduate content designer at Sage, based in Newcastle Upon Tyne (best city in the world, FYI). My background is in web design and development, so switching over to content design was a big change.
Joining Sage
My journey started at Sage completely remotely. It’s the same for a lot of us in the current climate.
I remember my first day thinking, “what is content at Sage?”, worried someone would have to hold my hand the whole time whilst working remotely, but it wasn’t like that at all.
I have been at Sage for 8 months now and I am so surprised how quickly our team has grown and evolved, and how quickly I am developing in my role. It’s amazing to work with people from different parts of the world. It feels like I have known our Manchester-based team for years!
But with that in mind, our team has faced challenges.
The challenge
I think the biggest challenge our team faced was communication with other project teams. When I say ‘challenge’, I don’t mean that we have had massive issues, but more down to the fact we struggled to get our voice heard.
At first, it was hard to raise our team’s visibility and get mentioned in some projects as the content designers working alongside the rest of the project teams, but now within the space of 8 months I have seen the dynamic of the SBS (Small Business Segment) dramatically change.
I hear the mention of the content team in big meetings now and it genuinely makes me happy, knowing that our work is being acknowledged and that our team is getting the spotlight we deserve. It’s an amazing feeling.
Our team is growing every month and our voice is getting louder and louder.
Finding my place
This is my on-going goal that I strive towards every day:
“Who am I and what can I bring to the team?”
It’s a lot of pressure I’m putting on myself, but I think it’s necessary to produce a better product for our customers. With a background in web design and app development maybe I can help bridge the gap of understanding and collaboration even more between content and UX designers.
Being a graduate-level designer, I have the opportunity to get involved in so many different sectors of content and my end goal is to one day turn around to my managers and say:
“I can do that, I will lead”.
I’m lucky to have great leadership on my team, it’s something I have lacked in previous jobs through my life. It’s key to my development and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our content team.
So that’s my life at Sage so far: great people, supportive structures and rewarding work. Who knows what the future will bring?
