Jason Taylor

COMPANY: MySpace

JOB TITLE: Project Manager & Scrum Master

Project Managers look at things from a high level view. They act as a conduit between the very technically minded development team and the not so technical sales, marketing and creative teams. Being able to explain a technical reason or solution in layman’s terms in a key skill. I deal with a lot of mobile phone companies who look to present MySpace as part of their mobile internet package. I get to test new phones such as the new iPhone when it was coming out so we could produce a MySpace application for it.

We use a really dynamic way of developing products for the MySpace site called Agile. The Scrum Master role is very similar to being a referee by making sure everyone plays by the rules and sticks to what was agreed when planning the project this helps us focus on delivering our software.

RELATED DEGREE:

• BEng Software Engineering at University of Sheffield
• Including IUP MiME Licence at Université du Maine, Le Mans, France

WORK EXPERIENCE:

Gained experience in various development related roles, including working on Phoenix, an Unmanned Air Vehicle for GEC Marconi, Car comparison and financial websites, Warner Village Cinema software. Warner Bros closed the development department last summer and I found the MySpace role before I’d finished.

SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Good Communication skills to communicate with developers, QA and any third parties.
• Technical Understanding and Abstraction Skills to help explain a technical problem or solution to a non-technical person.
• Co-ordination skills to bring all strands of a project together in a timely fashion.
• Logical Thinking to solve problems in the best way possible.
• Time Management to ensure that all tasks that are part of a project can be completed to target a successful delivery.
• A Sense of Humour ; there is a lot of banter that goes on in the office and being able to take it in the spirit it’s meant is always helpful.

BENEFITS OF THE JOB:

• Sociable Environment!
• Good Pay working on a fast moving, exciting, fun product with career prospects in a relatively new company.

CAREER GOALS:

Continue working in a fun, fast paced company doing work that challenges me, maybe overseas.