Spotlight on: Caroline Westbrook, Product Owner
If you are interested in human behaviour and business technology, you can help design great IT systems.
I’m a product owner in the Student Lifecycle Product Line squad, co-ordinating and prioritising the work we are delivering to harmonise and improve students’ experiences of their Imperial journey.
How did I get here?
I came from a customer services background, having worked in and managed centres in various industries. I was seconded to an ICT project and saw the work of a business analyst and realised I was fascinated by how business teams and ICT have to adapt to work together to achieve the right outcomes, and how hard that is to get right!
The step from BA to Product Owner seemed sensible especially as I learned more about Agile methods of delivery and it made a lot of sense to me.
My future aspirations
I don’t really think about much the future; I’m more drawn to what seems like the most interesting challenge. That’s probably a terrible thing from an earnings perspective, but I’d rather be happy than rich!
My influences
My heroine is Alice in Wonderland. There are lots of good analogies in those stories – both good and bad – for how business sometimes works! But no matter what was going on around her, Alice was always curious and open to her next adventure (plus an everlasting tea party sounds great)!
Managing a work-life balance
I’m interested in lots of things and as part of my midlife crisis I have recently taken a drawing class, tried stand-up comedy, joined a choir, and started doing fitness classes in quite a serious way. When I’m on campus if I’m not in the office you’ll probably find me poking around in the Abdus Salam Library – it’s an amazing perk to have one within such easy reach. So the same scattergun approach applies in both my personal life and career!
My advice
You really don’t need to have a technical background in coding and development to find a niche in ICT – I certainly don’t! If you are interested in human behaviour and business technology, you can help design great IT systems.
Want to join ICT?
We have some great and diverse roles in ICT, and we are always on the look out for the best tech talent.
If you want to join our team check out our current job vacancies.
Check out our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion pages and find out about or activities to remove barriers and create a great place to work.