Starting a new career in tech at Bupa opened up new horizons for Digital Scrum Master Zaibun-nisa Baig and showed her how neurodiversity can be a powerful career asset. She discusses the energy and fresh perspectives that new joiners can bring to a company, why asking powerful questions will always propel you forward, and how Bupa is supporting her to take the opportunities she needs to grow her career and thrive.
What inspired you to explore tech as a career?
I studied advertising at university, and after graduation, I signed up to a few agencies to do some freelance video editing and marketing. However, I found myself working with a different client every day of the week, which wasn’t ideal for me, and it was difficult to support myself financially. A friend told me that she had just completed a programme through Sparta Global, an innovative technology and training services provider, and I thought, ‘How? You’re bubbly and fun, not techie!’ Out of curiosity, I asked her to take me through the programme week by week and began to see that this might be something that I could do. I had always said I would give myself until I was 25 to throw myself like a bouncy ball trying different things to see where I landed. But at 23, I felt I had done that and just thought, ‘What have I got to lose?’.
How did you find your niche within Bupa?
In a way, the Sparta programme was a six-week elimination process for tech, with a new syllabus every week and an exam, which helped me identify whether something was for me or not. I found business analysis really interesting, but at the end of the course, I found myself on the bench with the clients that Sparta had available because of COVID lockdowns. After about six months, I got an interview with Bupa and, in 2021, landed a job in the data analytics and reporting team. In that role, I worked with people from different parts of the business—gathering requirements, understanding the database and building out reports. In the early days, I was often quite overwhelmed because I felt I had to have a certain level of knowledge to report on the data, and I felt behind compared to the rest of the team. In addition, I was the youngest member, which brought its own pressure in terms of how I connected with people. But I’ve always had great support at Bupa, and in June last year, I moved from business analysis into a new digital team as a Scrum Master. Now I work with a team of 10 developers and one deployment manager and cover three platforms, including one that allows customers to search for services in their area and one for consultants to manage time and invoicing in cycles of two-week sprints.
What can a new starter bring to a business?
Big companies like Bupa work with organisations like Sparta to bring new energy into the business. When you first start, you think, ‘Bupa has so much to offer’, and you’re just focused on trying to gain success from them, but they’re looking at you too, and you’re a big success story in yourself. You’re super fresh and energised, and you’ve got all these ideas to share—you can provide massive value to a business.
What has been most surprising to you about a career in tech?
The most surprising thing has been realising that it is something that I’m really good at. Over the past year, I’ve done a lot of self-reflection and tried to identify things about myself, and through doing that, I got myself diagnosed with ADHD and OCD. I now identify as neurodivergent, and there are a lot of people in the business that do too. Before I got my diagnosis, I only knew how I needed to work and for a while at Sparta, I really wondered if the tech world was for me as someone who needs to break things down and be in my own silo.
How have you tapped into your neurodiversity to empower your career?
This year I did an online behavioural health programme called SilverCloud through my GP that involved identifying my version of OCD, which is perfectionism. I have to navigate that with my ADHD and being jumpy between tasks, but I’ve actually realised that it is an ideal combination for my job as a scrum master. When you break it down it actually makes me so natural in what I do in my day-to-day role because I’m used to automating processes in my own world already so that when my ADHD is jumping I don’t have to consider everything, I can just consider the new information I am receiving,
What was the most challenging aspect for you in building a tech career?
Being in a classroom and having to do double the work just to get the same results as the others. I found it difficult to retain information and thought I had to compensate for this at Sparta with other skills, such as networking, to succeed. I got involved in lots of extracurricular things and even if I was overwhelmed, I would just keep going. I thought that as long as I had that interpersonal time with people and they gave me tasks, that they would see my ability to do things. I was trying to put out a visible statement that said, I’m willing to do whatever it takes. At the time, I didn’t see the quality in my work, though. I’m now here at Bupa doing the job I do every single day because I can genuinely do it well, not because of my networking skills or anything else. But even now, I can sometimes fall into Imposter Syndrome feelings.
Do you want to be a role model for neurodivergent people coming up behind you?
I had difficulty identifying with being neurodivergent for a while, and I think that partly comes from having an Asian background, where there can sometimes be a stigma. I’m fortunate though that my mum is a teaching assistant, and even though I didn’t have a diagnosis, growing up she always made sure I always had extra help. Last year Sparta invited me back for a neurodiversity event, and it was a huge moment for me to be able to say to them, ‘I made it. You guys saw my skills and believed in me’. Knowing how that event made me feel and how effective it was to see people speaking out about their neurodiversity publicly makes me want to go out and challenge people’s perceptions, particularly in colleges and universities where I feel I will have the most impact. I want to say to people like me: ‘I see you; I was you. I know you’re struggling. But I can show you what the next five years can look like.’
How does Bupa’s culture encourage you to explore opportunities and move forward?
The company culture is all about opportunity. I have regular one-to-ones with my manager where we talk about what I’m interested in, what I see myself doing in a few years and what I need to do to get there. He’ll give me advice and suggest courses to get extra certification. I also have an agile coach every week who takes me through anything role-related that I want to discuss. I want to see how much I can get from my career, and I feel the people at Bupa want that for me too. Throughout the month, there are also ad hoc team talks online that anyone can join, where people across the business discuss what projects they are working on—and that cross-functional insight provides inspiration for areas you might want to explore in your own career. To take up opportunities, you have to be transparent and express yourself though. For example, one of the developers I work with has mentioned that he wants to go into app development. And because he’s spoken up, now anytime there’s a project that they need resources for; the relevant teams know to call on him.
How do focus on growing your career every day?
My biggest power is questions. I write them down, look at them and think, what am I going to get from asking that? I will often try to remove words too, because the smallest questions can make the biggest impact. I don’t shy away from asking where the gaps are, or people feeling awkward or identifying that we haven’t been doing something because sometimes that’s what shakes it up and makes people call on you rather than someone else.
What advice would you give to women looking to move into a tech career?
Put yourself out there and feel your way into it. You have to get to the point where you detach yourself from your fears and don’t tell yourself that you’re not good at something, or can’t do it because not even those who are already in tech spaces know everything available to them or what’s going to happen tomorrow. Life is all about learning, asking questions and getting feedback, and if you go anywhere, especially into tech, with that vibe, you’ll be fine.
