Employee Profile – Odhran McCool

5 June 2022

Northern Ireland has earned a reputation over the past decade as a rich pool of talent for Software Engineering and general IT resources. Many multinational companies have invested in premises in Belfast in particular giving access to graduate Software Engineers, Multimedia Specialists, seasoned Business Analysts, and many more disciplines within the IT industry.

NiSoft having headquarters in Belfast has found the recruitment and retention of high-caliber personnel for the development, delivery, and support of our products globally to be a strategic consideration.

Over the past 20 years, NiSoft has worked with Colleges and Universities in the local area to secure placements and graduate positions for fresh talent emerging onto the local IT scene. Recently in conjunction with Belfast Metropolitan College (Belfast Met), NiSoft brought on board some new faces in a placement capacity and Odhran McCool is one of the success stories of that program and placement experience.

Having originally started his academic life in Construction Engineering, Odhran switched tracks to enroll in the Foundation Degree in Software and IT offered by Belfast Met at the Millfield Campus. NiSoft brought Odhran into the company as part of a work experience placement within our project and software configuration team. This placement meant first-hand exposure to customer requirements, documentation, data design, and analysis as well as delivering customer safety documents configured within the eclipse site. We believe in getting people into the team as quickly as possible to expose them to the kind of work and environment that a full-time position would entail. Also, this gives people like Odhran a chance to experience the personalities and dynamics of team delivery, assisting them in decisions around the kind of career they would like within IT and if NiSoft would be a good fit for their first job out of college. We are very happy to say that after his initial placement that Odhran joined the team as a full-time member of staff in mid-2022.

“NiSoft offered me the opportunity to first have a placement and then come on board full time, which has given me a great start to my career. The company have been very welcoming and helpful in getting me up to speed and I am really looking forward to getting to some customer sites when Covid restrictions lift.”

Not only did we manage to onboard Odhran at NiSoft for his skills in front of a keyboard and in software configuration but also we acquired a talented Wide Reciever who plays American Football with the Antrim Jets in Northern Ireland.