This week we interview Federico who has joined our IT team.

Name: Federico Marani                From: Italy

Job Title: DataBase Administrator        Age: 24

How long have you been in London?
I have been here for 1 month and a half.

What were you doing before this?
In April i finished my Computer Science degree and, after that, i worked in various projects regarding telephony, programming, and so on…

Why did you come to London?
Because i really want to improve my English, and i think the only way to do this is to come to the United Kingdom.  There are a plenty of reasons, basically the first one i mention is the most important, but i also think that a foreign experience is important for your own life. It gives you a chance to develop you further.

What did you hope to achieve?
Of course a great improvement in my English. My intention is to remain here for several months so i think i will have a chance to meet all the targets i thought at the start.

What does your job involve on a day-to-day basis?
My job is varied but my main job is developing support tools for helping the business activities of Answer English. Now I’m working on the student management system.

What responsibilities do you have?
Develop, test, maintain and teach how to use the system.

What are the best bits?
I’m free to suggest improvements so my work is not “shut up and work”… I’m just working on things i really like to do.

And the worst?
It’s the distance from home to work, really huge. I think it’s a problem for many people here in London.

What is the typical package (salary + benefits) for your job?
It really depends on your skills, you can be a simple technician as many people, or an administrator of a network of a big company. In some cases you can achieve a salary that is higher than most company directors, with many benefits. Here in London there are generally more chances than in Italy.

Do you have to have prior experience?  If so, what helped get you the job?
I worked in the IT sector from many years, especially in database and developing projects so this helped me a lot to find a job.  In my job the most important thing is the experience.

How did you go about getting it?
I found through an agent in Italy the English school here in London and i booked an English course for one month and an internship. Karen from professionals UK found me the internship here at Answer English. I came here for the interview and all went fine.

Any tips you could give our readers?
Come to London and learn English. It’s a very good experience and i recommend it to everyone. The only thing you need is to be adaptive. Especially if you work in the IT sector you shouldn’t have any problems to find a job.
A tip i can give you is start with an English course, it will give you a chance to know other people and make friends.

Anything you know now that you wish you’d known before coming here?
No, you can find all the information you need on internet. I also asked to a friend that was already here.

How much do you think your English has improved?
In only one month my English has become a lot better, especially my day to day English.

What, if any, lessons could the readers of AE Blog learn from your experience?
I hope you will be challenged to come in London. London is a great city and it has a lot of things to offer.

With this experience, what do you plan to do next?
I have no particular plans for my stay in London, the only thing i want to do is concentrate on my English. In my future i will have more opportunities to do whatever i want in Italy if my English level is high.