Technology Graduate Programme

Job description

About The Job

Tesco Technology is not your standard IT Department, we're a Technology organisation driving change and delivering value by building great products for our customers and colleagues every day in the UK, ROI, Asia and Central Europe.

The growth of internet shopping, mobile and convenience is changing the way customers want to shop. As a retailer, the customer is at the heart of everything we do and Technology is no different; our aim is to serve Britain's shoppers a little better every day through technology that works towards:

Improving the customer's journey in store and online

Making life simpler for colleagues in store, depots, customer service center or the office.

Our team is innovative, highly-skilled, agile, passionate and fun. If you're looking for an environment to create cutting edge solutions which make a difference to millions of customers and colleagues across the globe, while maintaining a sustainable work life balance, then Tesco Technology is the place for you.

Interesting Facts

If you stacked all the Hudls sold on Tesco Direct in 2013, you would have a tower 4 times higher than the London Shard

We launched the UK's first 'virtual shopping fridge' at Gatwick airport in 2012

The world's first online grocery shopping order was placed in 1984, with Tesco. We now deliver to 380,000 customers every week

Our Computers for Schools voucher campaign gave 100 million pounds' worth of computer equipment to over 20,000 schools since launching in 1992

We operate in 14 countries, and over a third of our sales are outside the UK

Each Christmas, we award over 1.2 billion Clubcard points to our customers...

... And in the 7 days leading up to Christmas we sold 2,104,788kg of carrots. That's the same weight as the London Eye!

... We also sold 136,733,220 individual brussel sprouts. That's nearly three each for every adult in the UK!

Main Responsibilities

Your 2 year programme will help you become a future technology leader. Following your induction, you will build your foundation in retail through a short in-store placement. This will enable you to understand the heart of our business, our customers and how Technology is crucial to fulfilling the customer experience.

Upon returning to the office you will progress through multiple placements, rotating around teams within the department. From understanding how our infrastructure works and is set up, to working with some products (such as developing our websites) and services (such as improving how we store the location of all the millions of products throughout Tesco), you will develop a good understanding of how a Technology department functions.

You will also be given the opportunity to work overseas, with a 3 month placement in our offshore engineering centre in India. This will give you exposure to a vital part of our business and the opportunity to fully embed yourself in an entirely different culture. This will further enable you to develop your skills whilst delivering real value for the business and its customers with our colleagues around the world.

Don't worry though, this isn't a graduate scheme full of mandatory placements with specific teams. Our programme offers you a great deal of flexibility to pick teams and areas that appeal to you. We have a curriculum in place that ensures you cover the basics everywhere, however if you want to explore the depths of our architecture or prefer to be in more of a customer facing role, there is opportunity for you to specialise where you want to. The curriculum will ensure you develop a good base of technical and leadership skills, the rest is up to you.

Throughout all of these placements you will have lots of opportunity to show us what you can do and be able to bring your ideas to Tesco. One such example of a graduate project was creating a system from scratch which was then rolled out to all 3,500 stores in the UK and ROI that enabled them to track their in-store technology issues on a computer instead of having to call the helpdesk. We have many more success stories like this which is why we are looking for people who have a desire to improve themselves and the Technology we operate. You will have real responsibility to deliver and you'll be surprised at how much you manage to achieve in 2 years!

Individual and collective improvement is a big focus for us and throughout your programme you will have access to lots of online technical training to improve your ability (no matter what level you start at). There will also be a range of leadership training courses along with support from your buddy, mentor, manager and your teams. Support is in abundance, from all directions at Tesco and we want you to develop to your maximum potential. If you have an inquisitive nature, want to learn how technology is used/ developed whilst also developing your own leadership skills then this is the place for you.

We are looking for inquisitive people with a real desire to learn that can help improve our department. Demonstrating this throughout your programme will leave you with a number of options available to you. For example, you could have the chance to develop our software, design our architecture, deliver major technology changes to our stores/ depots/ head office or the opportunity to own the roadmap for a set of multi-million pound, high-impact projects.

A number of previous graduates have gone on to become Heads of department and Directors within Technology. With the focus on career progression and flexibility our graduate scheme gives you to specialise in an area that appeals to you there really are lots of different career paths you can take.

Ideal Candidate

300 UCAS points

Be on track for a minimum of a 2:1 degree likely to be in Computer Science, Maths or Engineering, although any discipline is accepted

A passion for technology and the desire to learn more about how it is used/ developed

An inquisitive nature and the drive to improve your leadership and technical skills

To be a strong leader of people who inspires everyone to achieve together

Understand how people use Technology and be able to relate ideas back to the customer shopping experience

To be able to develop innovative systems that are truly leading the way in retail technology

To stick to your values and do the right thing, even when it's tough

To be agile in the way you think, make decisions and handle change

To be connected to the latest thinking, inside and outside of the business

The hunger to drive your own career and become one of our leaders of tomorrow in an exciting and fast-paced industry

About the Company

About Tesco UK

Our operations in the UK are the largest within the Group, with over 3500 stores and over 310,000 colleagues. We have strengthened the foundations of the UK business and we are now accelerating plans to deliver the most compelling offer for customers with sharper prices, improved quality, stronger ranges and better service. Every colleague has an amazing oppourtunity to play their part in delivering small changes everyday that can make a big difference to customers and colleagues.

Core Purpose and Values

Our business was built with a simple mission to be the champion for customers, helping them to enjoy a better quality of life and an easier way of living. This hasn't changed. Customers want great products at great value which they can buy easily and it's our job to deliver this in the right way for them.

That's why we've chosen Serving Britain's shoppers a little better every day' as our new core purpose. As a business, serving customers is at the heart of everything we do from colleagues in our stores to those of us in supporting roles.

In the UK, we serve some 66 shoppers every second, so it's our goal to ensure every one of those customers experiences just a little better service on each visit.