Anne Bryson is as happy making music as she is writing code. Not too shabby on the piano and guitar, it was her love of music as a teenager that led her to the career in IT.
Today she is one of a rare band of senior female developers working in cloud computing for Scottish-headquartered industry leader iomart.
“When you look at the manuscripts of Beethoven or Mozart they’re not dissimilar to lines of computer code. Both rely on an element of logical, mathematical thought,” says Anne. “The two are very much in tune, if you’ll pardon the pun, as we move to a totally digital future.”
After studying music at Glasgow University, Anne went on to gain an MSc in Information Technology and as a fresh young graduate became one of iomart’s first employees.
Now, as Group Technical Manager, Anne manages a large team that runs the computer systems iomart uses for its own business and its customers.
Having started off as a computer programmer Anne’s role has developed into more of a management one over the years.
“As well as getting to grips with lots of different coding languages and systems, I have learned a lot of the business processes from end to end so I’m often needed in meetings to work out what the best overall solution to a problem is, even if it’s not necessarily a technical fix that’s required.”
Communication is key. Anne has to ensure her team has all the information they require to complete their projects and that means collaborating with different departments.
“A lot of what I do is liaising with other areas of the business to identify the development work that’s needed and to make sure projects remain on schedule. It’s important that lines of communication are kept open and we’re all working towards the same goal.”
Providing computing, storage and network services to thousands of customers large and small from data centres across the United Kingdom is a big challenge but a very rewarding one.
According to a recent report by digital skills body Tech Partnership, despite the fact Scotland’s tech sector is booming only 18 per cent of technical roles are held by women. Anne is keen to change that and encourage more young females into the industry, particularly into the more technical roles.
“There are fantastic opportunities to work in one of the most exciting industries in the world and be well paid for it,” she says. “New start-ups are being created every day, the Amazons and Googles are doing incredibly exciting things and companies like iomart are helping customers to go ‘cloud first’ and create scalable, global platforms with top notch connectivity and automation so they can grow and transform.”
She adds: “Cloud computing is changing our lives and it’s just great to be in the middle of it all.”
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