Working in healthcare doesn’t just mean being on the frontline providing direct care to patients. There are so many different roles that make up the healthcare industry that indirectly help support people in need.
Information Technology (IT) is evolving all kinds of industries, including healthcare. This is creating a whole new branch of healthcare jobs. From securing electronic health records to developing, managing and supporting the IT infrastructure, there are diverse jobs for people with technical skill and an interest in healthcare.
Hear from Saffron, Information Security Engineer on her career journey, advice for starting a career in IT and why you should join Elysium Healthcare.
What is your career background?
I’ve always been interested in IT. My BTech was in IT and I went to Bournemouth University to study Cyber Security with Digital Forensics. At uni I did a placement year in phishing and went into sysadmin after I graduated. I then started at Elysium so it has been really nice career progression.
How did you become interested in IT?
So funny story, I actually watched Mr Robot when I was 16 and I was like, that is pretty fun and went with it. If you’ve got to commit to doing something for a third of your life, it might as well be something that you find exciting.
Once you finished university, what did you do after?
I did a placement year in the middle of my course, that was really helpful in getting some work experience. I had a really good time, but after graduating, I actually au paired for a little bit, it was the post grad buffer period of trying to find something.
I ended up working for a women’s charity. I was really excited about the opportunity but the role wasn’t quite what I was expecting, so I looked to move my career and that’s when I joined Elysium. It was such a nice change of pace. I went from being overworked and undervalued to joining Elysium which was the complete opposite. My manager’s amazing and everyone here is great.
What role did you start off as at Elysium and did you do any training with Elysium?
I started as a Junior Information Security Analyst and now I am an Information Security Engineer.
I did do a certification. I did the CompTIA Security+ exam which was paid for by Elysium. It was a really nice opportunity to progress myself. And then a few months after that, I got the promotion to my current role, which was really exciting.
How do those roles differ?
My current role is more responsibility. So, before it was mostly looking at alerts, investigating and performing analysis. It was more responding and reacting versus now we’re being proactive and able to stop the fires before they happen. I take on more projects, I can push things forward and liaise a lot with other teams. So it’s more responsibility, but in a fun autonomous way.
I work on such a wide variety of things. For example, I have to work on any alerts as they come through. So if our security tooling is picking up, hey, there might be a virus on this person’s computer, I would then reach out to them, perform any scans that are necessary, investigate that and perform recovery or assign it to the relevant team.
Do you like what you do?
I really do because it’s so engaging and you never really have any days that are the same. I can have some days where I’ll spend all day working on an alert or having to investigate why something happened. Then I can have days where I’m just solely doing project work and things pop up so I’ll get tickets come through or people message me. So it’s very diverse. It suits how my brain works, which I like.
Tell us a bit more about working for the Elysium IT department. What is your favourite thing about working in the IT department?
My team is quite small, its just my manager and I, it’s a good balance.
I’ve always felt so supported by my manager, and management as a whole. Anytime there’s been anything that’s popped up or things that need improving, there’s always been such a receptive attitude to wanting to advance things. There’s a really big commitment to continuous improvement and to excellence as well.
I like there’s a good camaraderie between people. We have good relationships, I work quite closely with the infrastructure team and with marketing, it’s nice to be able to work with other people. Before I got promoted, it was mostly just focusing on alerts and analysis. So now getting to communicate and liaise with others, it’s nice to build up that rapport.
The thing about being in security is you’re so reliant on other teams being able help and collaborate. Security is dependant on everyone working together. We have to set standards and other teams need to help implement them quite frequently. So it’s essential in what we do to be able to collaborate and support each other.
What do you like about working for Elysium?
Something that I really like about helps me on the more difficult days is reminding myself it is a healthcare company providing essential services to people. I could be doing cyber security for oil and gas or for insurance companies, which feels a lot less rewarding than helping protect people’s mental health, physical health and livelihood.
It’s rewarding to know we’re supporting people who need help.
What would your advice be for someone looking to start in IT?
I would say you need a lot of passion behind it. You have to be interested in why you’re doing what you’re doing, especially if it’s cyber security. You can’t just understand security, you need a good understanding of networks of infrastructure and different things that make up part of the bigger picture. I think having a passion for IT is important. IT is something that is constantly developing and constantly having new tools and technologies. You have to like what you’re doing because you have to read so much more and learn so much more all the time.
So I would say passion and having an open mindset in terms of always wanting to learn more.
Why should someone join IT at Elysium Healthcare?
Overall, I think we have a really lovely culture of everyone wanting to take care of each other. I think as well, the progression opportunities that I’ve had here, I don’t think I would have been able to get anywhere else. For me to go into a junior role fully remote in itself is amazing. But then also I went from junior analyst to engineer. That was a really good progression opportunity for me that I don’t think I would have had elsewhere.
What do you see yourself doing next?
Honestly, I really enjoy what I’m doing at the moment. Being an engineer allows me to find creative solutions for problems that we’re facing.
It would be really cool to branch into more penetration testing or ethical hacking at some point, but there’s actually a couple of projects that I’m working on in Elysium where I’ll be able to expand on those skills and learn more about it. So that’s really exciting. It’s fun to be able to do that.
Is there any other training that you will do with Elysium?
Yes, so I’ve signed up for multiple ethical hacking and cyber security courses with Elysium. So that’s really fun to be able to branch into. We also have a lot of opportunity for development. We have access to tonnes of courses relating to anything in IT, not just security. So it’s fun to be able to branch out of what I know. I think Elysium would support me in any courses that I would want to do, they really advocate for development.
If you have compassion for people and a desire to help, view all our latest clinical and non-clinical roles on our website. To find a new opportunity, click here to view our careers page.
Is an IT Career the Right Path for You?
If you have a passion for technology, problem-solving skills, and a keen interest in how systems and software work, then a career in IT could be the perfect fit for you. From IT support and cybersecurity to software development, there’s a role suited to your skills and ambitions.