An Insight into our Graduate Scheme at TDS

TDS is a global software consultancy operating across Europe and North America, with offices in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Warsaw, Wrocław and Calgary.

Our team is made up of technology experts, and we provide clients with individual consultants to strengthen an existing team, or a full Scrum team to scope and deliver a project end to end.

At TDS, we are dedicated to supporting talented consultants, no matter where they are in their career. Our graduate scheme is designed to support individuals who are just breaking into the technology industry after university, so we can develop and nurture talent from the earliest point in your professional career.

The range of roles we offer at TDS is broad. From software development and quality engineering to business analysis and delivery management, our graduate scheme will give you an insight into each key role in a software consultancy, providing you with the opportunity to discover how each role works in the real world.

Our graduate scheme at TDS: an overview

You’ll start with a period of structured training and then move onto an internal TDS project, where you can apply what you’ve learned on real work before you’re in front of a client. Once you’re ready, you’ll join a client team.

Throughout, you’ll be supported by experienced TDS consultants. Rather than a single mentor, you’ll work with different people as you move through the disciplines and onto projects: someone who knows testing inside out when you’re working on test automation, a delivery manager when you’re learning how work is planned and shipped, the senior engineers on your client team once you’re there. They’ll guide you through the code and engineering practices we use, the tools we work with day to day, how Agile teams organise themselves, and how to work well with clients.

What you’ll explore

Over the course of the graduate scheme, you will be introduced to and have hands-on exposure across our core disciplines:

• Software Development: writing, reviewing and maintaining code in modern languages and frameworks, and learning the practices that keep it maintainable.
• Testing and Quality Engineering: test design, automation and the test-driven approach our name is built on.
• User-Centred Design (UCD): understanding users and their needs, and turning research and accessibility requirements into designs that work.
• DevOps: build and deployment pipelines, cloud infrastructure, automation, monitoring and release practices.
• Data: working with data models, pipelines, analysis and reporting to help clients make better decisions.
• Business Analysis: working with clients to understand a problem properly, capture requirements and turn them into something a delivery team can build.
• Delivery Management: how work is planned, prioritised and shipped, and how agile teams keep momentum and manage risk.

During the graduate scheme, you will explore each of these areas, but you are not expected to master all of them. The point is breadth: understanding how each discipline thinks, where they overlap, and which one you want to grow into.

Who we’re looking for

We’re looking for problem solvers – people who like to get their hands dirty.

From the start, you will be given real problems and plenty of support, but you will not be handed a script. Curiosity and a willingness to have a go at something new count for more at this stage than knowing the right answer.

This is also a client-facing role. From early on, you will be in the room with our clients – in workshops, stand-ups, reviews and demos – and part of your job is to represent TDS well. Listening properly, asking a sensible question, explaining what you have done, and saying clearly when you are stuck all matter as much as technical ability.

In a consultancy, interpersonal skills are not a nice-to-have: they are a necessity.

What we're looking for

At TDS, we want to help you grow into a role where you can thrive with the support of our team.

To succeed in the graduate scheme, we’re looking for people with the following:

• Ideally a degree in a STEM subject.
• Curiosity about how things work, and the persistence to keep going when something does not work first time.
• A willingness to pick up unfamiliar tools and technologies, and to keep learning once the novelty has worn off.
• Clear communication in writing and in person, with both colleagues and clients.
• Comfort with being the beginner in the room; you will be the least experienced person on the team for a while, and asking questions is the fastest way out of that.
• Self-motivation and reliability.
• Transferable experience from whatever you have done so far, and the ability to talk about what you learned from it.
• Any existing exposure to coding, testing, design, analysis, delivery, infrastructure or data is a bonus.

Why TDS?

At TDS, we are committed to helping you build and develop the skills you need to maintain a long, successful career with us in the technology industry.

From your first day on a client project to the point where you’re leading work yourself, the scheme is there to turn you into a confident consultant, whichever path you take.

Visit our careers page for more information on our job opportunities, or contact us to discuss your goals within the tech industry.