In my current role I analyse customers’ behaviour, so I build customer segmentation propensity models to predict what they’re going to do later. I started computer science when I was in China and I moved here to study machine learning at the University of Bristol. After that I found a job in a marketing agency; because of my background they asked me to build models for their small clients and gradually they began to have bigger clients. After that I moved into the data science field.

Not long after starting my first job, I was made redundant. That was my first role, I was still learning. I had a lot of things to implement, I had plans – I want to do this, I want to do that – and then suddenly there was a full stop: “You’re finished, off you go”. I believe that there are always difficulties when you’re trying to reach your goal so you need to be hardworking and determined all the way – that’s where my confidence comes from.

One day my manager said to me: “There are things in your life you need to look after properly”. To me that means my parents, good food, travelling. That’s the advice that’s quite important to me.

Working in data there are always new challenges: new data, new problems, every day won’t be the same problems, different challenges every day. It’s good because you never stop learning; every day you get into work and think ‘maybe there’s something new I can learn’. It’s really interesting.