Careers with STEM: Digital Retail 2020

CAREERS withSTEM

â„¢

TERM 1, 2020

LE DOSUSBUE I FOR

FLCIPIENCE S

digital retail

Senior Android Developer

Customer Analytics Manager

Digital Product Manager

Supermarket science: Meet the digital gurus at Woolies p2 Turn your love of online shopping into a career! p4 CAREERS with STEM.COM >CREATIVITY < >+CULTURE < >EDUCATION + MARKETING < >WELLBEING + SOFTWARE < >WELLBEING < >SPACE< DATA SCIENCE USER EXPERIENCE DEVELOPMENT

>BUSINESS<

FOREWORD

e l p o e p s l il k s Fresh A day in the life in digital retail

#1

ing Director Amanda Bardwell, Manag of WooliesX

CAREERSwithSTEM.com

Here’s what an average day

at work looks like : 7.30am Cuddles with her cat (priorities) while checking the latest stats on the Woolworth s app from the previous day – such as sales figures and any customer feedback.

8.30am Walk to work and grab a morning coffee from her favourite barista (who has a parrot! ). “I love living so clos e and being able to walk to wor k.”

9am “First thing, I check in with the team. There’s alw ays lots of collaborating and me etings, for example we mig ht need to be ready for increas ed traffic from an upcoming marketing campaign.”

10.30am “I might spend som e of the morning building wireframes (simple visual representations) of any new features coming for the app .”

12pm “Grab lunch on the go! ”

er UX Designer, Customy Experience Compan

1pm “Spend some time che cking and writing emails, and writing up a plan for what we’re going to work on nex t based on customer feedbac k and feedback from the tea m.”

3pm “In the afternoon I mig ht present a new feature to the team. We all get together in a room for discussion and feedback for us to incorporate .”

5pm “I might have a mento ring session with someone in my team, or WooliesX ofte n hosts meetups, with other product managers or digital enthusiasts.”

7pm “Walk home, make dinn er and chill!”

What’s WooliesX?

Based in a cool office with tech startup vibes in inner Sydney, WooliesX is a hub for everything high-tech at Woolworths and its subsidiaries.

Think data analytics, app development, web design and more.

Business Analyst, Colonial First State

H

in retail in aving started my career ago, I never rs yea ny ma nd Queensla s this imagined the opportunitie we move As e. vid industry would pro led gyolo hn tec gly towards an increasin bring to g pin hel be to ud pro culture, I am so , ers custom the best of Woolies to our ology and data! hn tec m, tea our by d powere orm the way we nsf tra Technology helps us ers at Woolworths connect with our custom sX is focused on and our digital arm Woolie lives easier. This making our customers’ estment in people, inv involves considerable STEM talent – in particular, exceptional developers and data scientists, software digital marketers. future will require About 80% of jobs in the ry is heavily male STEM skills. The indust for it to thrive, dominated, but in order ial. In Australia, gender equality is essent s are women, and ate du only 16% of STEM gra rkforce is female.

27% of the total STEM wo need to educate These fig ures highlight the women on the ng the next generation of you eer in STEM. car a of s efit importance and ben Zarah are Efrosini, Katharyn and . These women are quo tus sta the g challengin and have forged sX an integral part of Woolie d. They are fiel ir the in s their way to succes will ry sto ir the and s ion STEM champ ns, alia Austr hopefully inspire young pursue to lar, ticu and young women in par a career in STEM. of digital Placing the next generation ul career path with excellence on a meaningf continue to be the WooliesX will allow us to ure of retail. fut ital trailblazers of the dig

K

r Bachelor of Compute Science, ANU

med – Retail careers have transfor ound! and STEM opportunities ab

the start of the dotcom era atharyn says growing up at the and digital were changing showed her that technology s. say of that future,” she world. “I wanted to be part tech nce, has worked in various scie er put com She studied at er nag Ma t duc Pro ital role as Dig gigs and now, her current m. tea app s orth olw Wo t of the WooliesX, means she’s par of other specialists, like UX ch bun a with k wor to “I get eriences analysts to deliver great exp designers, developers and s. for our app users,” she say

artment of Business Analyst, Dep place Relations rk Wo d an ent ym plo Em Digital Product Product Manager, sy nager, WooliesX Ma Ea de Ma ce an ur Ins Life (LIME) startup

The digital future of retail

Digital Product Katharyn Moger is a This is what Manager at WooliesX.s like her nine to five look

Web developer, Hotel Club

amanda bardwell

2

STEM+WOOLIESX Meet three women at WooliesX – the yo in STEM working ung, digital-savvy face of one of Austra lia best-known retail bu ’s oldest, sinesses

#2

Number cruncher

AS CUSTOMER ANALYTICS MANAGER, Efrosini Savidis uses data to help woolworths make better decisions

E

frosini has strong feelings about the way her favourite subject, maths, is taught in schools – so much so, that after graduating a com bined Bachelor of Science (Mathematics ) and Finance at UTS, she and a uni friend co-founded their own busines s called iSquared Learning that runs fun, hands-on afte r-school maths classes in primary schools. “We were passionate about getting kids curious about STEM,” Efrosini says. “We wanted to inspire young people to pur sue STEM and learn maths in a fun way! We believe that STEM is our future.”

In this data-driven age, ma ths and coding are fundamental skills that will be invaluable for all sorts of careers. “The opportunitie s are limitless,” she says.

They’re skills that have led to a stellar career path for Efrosini, who is now Custom er Analytics Manager at WooliesX. “I find ways to use data to inform business decisions, and to measure business initiatives by rela ting everything back to the cus tomer,” she explains. And with 12 million loyalty customers across all of Woolworths’ businesses, there’s no sho rtage of variety in Efrosini’s job. “Every day there’s a diff erent problem to solve.”

Hot career tip: Take every opportunity you can. “You’ll graduate with the same qua lification as everybody else in your degree, so look for opportunities to do things tha t will help you stand out,” she says.

Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) and Business (Finance), UTS Business Analyst, Optus Insights Analyst, Foxtel

#3

Shareholder Analyst, orient capital Co-founded iSquared Learning

Senior Insights Analyst, WooliesX

Customer Analytics Manager, WooliesX

App builder

orks are uez says support netw be IRL ng mi Do h ra Za r pe lo to en need Android deve EM – and they don’t ev great for women in ST ised by Google for having ch means she’s been recogn w those people who always kne arah says she wasn’t one of the in nity mu com l rura a in wing up what she wanted to be. Gro an dad – ays good at maths, so her Philippines, Zarah was alw footsteps. his in w follo to t wan might engineer – suggested she ks as an in engineering, she now wor While Zarah did get a degree to do. self her ething she largely taught android app developer, som ah Zar sX, olie Wo roid Developer at In her role as a Senior And g ppin sho ne onli s’ orth code for Woolw spends a lot of time writing the how on ck dba fee ting ple. “I love get app, used by 1.2 million peo that ing eth som on king wor ays love app helps real people – I alw eloper ah, who is also a Google Dev Zar s say ,” use y uall people act

Z

mmunications Electronics and CoMa nila University De neo Engineering, Ate Android Developer, Cloud Sherpas

3

Expert, whi field. exemplary expertise in her says she male-dominated area, Zarah a in king wor an As a wom developers networks of women android finds being a part of online . “It happens emely helpful and supportive from all over the world extr having “So in the team,” she says. a lot that I’m the only woman helpful.” lly rea is to s off and even vent these women to bounce idea k with it. you love – just do it, and stic Hot career tip: “Whatever e to be in hav n eve ’t don y k, and the Also find your support networ e!” – Gemma Chilton the same geographical plac

Product Engineer, Intel Android Developer, Domain

, Software Developerms Oberthur Card Syste Senior Android Developer, WooliesX

DIGITAL RETAIL

STEM+DIGITAL RETAIL

IN THE BAG: S B O J L I A T E R DIGITAL Shopping for your career options? Online retail is a fast-growing field crying out for STEM skills

llions of us nline retail is on a roll. Mi -buy’ process are loving the ‘find-like tly spent – Aussies and Kiwis join on line retailers in almost A$34 billion with ber 2019 according the 12 months to Septem na l Australia Bank to reports from the Natio nd. ala Ze and the Bank of New y transitioning idl rap are Retail businesses ita l platforms and from physical stores to dig user experience massively en hancing the . The Nationa l (UX) for on line shoppers ion says the On line Retailers Associat “far more complex consumer experience is r before”. and fragmented than eve ry needs serious ust ind Which means, the people to fill jobs numbers of STEM-smart are engineers, UX like data analysts, softw pers. So, not on ly designers and web develo t now you can get can you shop on line bu retailers you follow! a cool tech job with the

O

brands dominating And it’s not just the big exciting startups of on line – there are plenty talent. New w ne in this space looking for tform pla ail ret e Sydney-based on lin 2019. Since ril Ap in hed nc TheUrge was lau hion retail search then, the new on line fas n 210,000 page porta l has had more tha 0 in sales. But the views and made A$250,00 find STEM-smart company is str uggling to ds. school leavers and uni gra an Department ali str According to the Au

by May 2023 the , ess sin of Jobs and Small Bu liant jobs will grow total number of STEM-re % for non-STEM by 10.8%, compared to 6.1 a ver y different jobs. “The industry needs to old retail stores skill set now compared people to meet the but there are not enough founders Cayley codemand,” say TheUrge and Doron Ostrin. – Matthew Brace

Online shopping career checklist The digital retail world is crying out for talent – here are some of the roles on their STEM-smarts shopping list

W

hen you think about working in retail, you might think about sweeping floors and dressing showroom dummies. But in the age of online shopping there are loads of tech jobs crying out for STEM grads to fill them. Here are just a few:

Data analysts: categorising products, working on ranking and relevancy, search navigation and search experimentation platforms. $50K–$98K

Digital marketing specialists: identifying target markets, creating brand images and using search-engine optimisation and marketing to create online campaigns. $47K–$84K

UX designers: creating captivating, graphics-rich online experiences so customers love the shopping experience. $50K–$110K

ux designers

Web and app developers: driving expansion and keeping up with customer demand for shopping via screen and voice. $45K–$88K * Source: salaries according to payscale.com

CAREERSwithSTEM.com

4

digital marketing specialist

Google-style fashion sta looking for STEM gra rtup ds

data analysts

This Sydney tech startup is on the hunt for more STEM-smart young people – especially girls – to help run their online fashion search portal

D

oron and Cayley Ostrin are the husband-and-wife cofounders of cool new online retail sta rtup TheUrge, a platform tha t takes a Google-style pure search engine approach to fashio n reta il.

TheUrge, which aims to be the world’s one-stop-shop for online fashion retailing, is actively searching for you ng STEM-smart girls and guy s to fill their ranks. This is driven by the fact that the site has gro wn super-fast since launchin g in April 2019. Check it out : 210 ,000 page views, 93,000 unique users and A$250,000 in sale s in under a year! They’ve also launched in the US and are aiming for the UK in 2020.

Doron and Cayley say as com panies like theirs accelerate in growth, it’s becoming clea r where the gaps are in the workforce. “There are lots of new roles now in things like UX, design, feedback gathering , data analytics, etc. This means the demand for STEM-smart gra duates in online retail is outstripping supply,” they say.

TheUrge co-founders are par ticularly keen to recruit data scientists, and more girls in par ticular – as online reta il has, to date, had a predominantly female audience. “We nee d mo re people in the team who are actually shoppers as well as hav ing the STEM skills, so they und erstand the brand and the buying process. But these people are ver y hard to find. The female developers we see are coo l and funky but they are get ting snapped up so quickly by other employers because of the demand for their skills – and not just in retail.”

t Demand for STEM-smilaris ta graduates in online ”re outstripping supply web and app developers REER HERE START YOUR CA

l retail stem+digita study Match your electives

SHUTTERSTOCK

> Mathematics > Computer Science/ICT > Business Studies > Systems Engineering

ies), n (Digital Technolog Bachelor of Desig kinDigiTech ea /D .ly bit ty rsi ive Deakin Un ation Technology Bachelor of Inform alytics, An ta Da and Australia University of South bit.ly/UniSA-IT-Data Information Bachelor of Applied Technology, La Trobe University bit.ly/LaTrobeIT

5

DIGITAL RETAIL