Author Ben Gould
Having joined the Diegesis team at the beginning of 2020, I have had a somewhat unconventional journey with the company so far. Despite having not met my colleagues in person, I have been warmly welcomed by the team and have received great support during my initial training. From my experience, the company has adapted superbly with the transition to remote working, and I’ve been able to get stuck into my first Ingres project at the Office for National Statistics.
“the company has adapted superbly with the transition to remote working”
Most recently, I’ve worked on a project to update the Government Research and Development (GovERD) survey. This survey is an annual census of government departments to collect expenditure and employment figures relating to Research and Development carried about by various establishments. The wider goal is to track government progress towards a target of 2.4% GDP expenditure on R&D by 2027.
I was assigned the task of completing an investigation of the existing framework, followed by an application update for the 2019 run. I was able to deliver a variety of specified changes, adding new questions and vetting procedures, enabling the survey to collect vital Covid-19 related data.
“I was able to deliver a variety of specified changes, enabling the survey to collect vital Covid-19 related data.”
Working with Ingres on this project has been a fascinating introduction to the IT industry. I have been able to apply various technical skills from my Diegesis training, including SQL scripting, testing and debugging, and understanding the principles of object orientated programming in OpenROAD.
Looking to the future, I’m excited to continue working on supporting and improving ONS applications such as GovERD, that produce crucial statistics. Given recent circumstances, the importance of building efficient data systems, where data can be transferred from collection to analyses as quickly as possible, without compromising data integrity, has been made abundantly clear. I look forward to continuing my work with Diegesis at ONS, doing what I can to help improve the existing applications, whilst learning as much as possible along the way.