My week at Teamgage
Teamgage believe in encouraging women and girls to consider a career in tech. It’s one of the reasons many of our team have worked with HerTechPath. So when the opportunity came up to provide an opportunity for Hannah Gall to conduct her work experience placement with us, we jumped at the chance. This is her guest post!
Hi, I’m Hannah!
My name is Hannah Gall, and recently did a week of work experience with Teamgage at Stone and Chalk, Lot Fourteen in Adelaide.
Why were you here?
When students go into year 11, they have the opportunity to complete work experience as part of the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). I was lucky enough to be accepted to complete my work experience at Teamgage. Not only did this mean I would get the opportunity to get an insight into a tech start-up, but also explore the Stone and Chalk Startup Hub and the Lot Fourteen innovation precinct too! Super exciting.
What did you learn?
Before my work experience, I was not so sure about what I wanted to study in University, and was interested in Teamgage as working in technology is a real possibility for young people, however a lot of us don’t know much about what goes on behind closed doors.
During my time with Teamgage, I learned that there are many different roles in a software company, from the software developers to designers and marketing staff. Because I met so many different types of workers, the experience allowed me to consider what I would like to study in University.
One of the major pieces of work that I did during my time at Teamgage was to conduct a detailed website review and then present that back to the team. I analysed each page of the site, considering the end user, the navigation and images used. I had some recommendations around how the pages are organised and learned this is called “Information Architecture.” I also suggested one of the website videos should include subtitles and that prompted more learning on the subject of Accessibility.
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I was also able to spend time learning more about using the following pieces of software:
- Confluence
- Canva
- Teams
- Figma
- Webflow
Who did you meet?
Teamgage made sure I got to spend time with all the key members of their team. This even included the CEO and COO!
During my time with Ben Colley, who is the COO of the company, he helped me learn how to correctly give feedback on things, and taught me to always ask questions when I don't understand something. I was immediately able to put this to good use when I met the Teamgage software developers (haha)!
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I also met Andy Welsh, the Head of Design, and we spoke about the Teamgage website and the importance of getting a detailed brief when designing something such as an advertisement or website for a company. Andy showed me the graphic design software he uses and gave me advice about pursuing a career in design. Speaking with Andy was super helpful, as I am considering studying design in University.
What's Lot Fourteen like?
Lot Fourteen is very different on the inside than on the outside.
The old 19th century buildings that you see on North Terrace actually house so many 21st century organisations including:
- The Australian Space Agency
- The Australian Institute for Machine Learning
- The Bureau of Meteorology
The Teamgage office is actually within an old hospital ward, but is now full of sick code instead of sick people (haha)!
What's Stone and Chalk like?
Within Stone and Chalk, it’s really good for networking because a bunch of start ups are all together and can meet up and easily talk to each other.
A good example of this is the weekly Test Drive Tuesday. This was started by Matt from Makers Empire as a way for companies to gain and give feedback on their new apps, software, websites etc. I was able to attend and helped to give feedback on a new onboarding experience for MyGigsters. This is an amazing Financial Toolkit for Freelancers and Gig Workers in Australia!
Another way the residents get together at Stone and Chalk is something called Sweet Spot. This weekly event happens every Wednesday and is an opportunity to network, to talk about various wins and to say hi to any new people in the hub. I went down there with the rest of the Teamgage team and got up in front of everyone to introduce myself.
Was it what you expected?
My expectations of working in software at a startup hub were the opposite of what I experienced this week with Teamgage.
Yes, there were super smart software developers talking about things I could hardly understand, but I was able to work on projects with the team rather than having a stereotypical experience doing stuff like filing and grabbing coffees for everyone.
Working with Teamgage opened up a lot of career options within technology that I hadn’t considered before. I thought the only jobs in technology were those of the software developers and the CEO, but there are so many more jobs within technology that I was able to explore this week, and it really opened my eyes to how many different careers can be found within technology and software.
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