Production Support Analyst Review

I worked in Nomura as a production support analyst in the Wholesale Production Services (WPS) division. My everyday work involved diagnosing and remediating issues in the complex system flows, investigating previously unknown issues all while in contact with traders or other business staff in a fast-paced environment, having good communication with the developers of the systems and gaining technical knowledge in order to get the ‘big picture’ and disseminate information to find a solution to system issues.

I learned how to perform troubleshooting as there is an array of issues that happen in production environments that cause errors and outages in the systems. So I performed troubleshooting which is a systematic approach to solving the issue. I also learned Microsoft Power BI which I used for producing reports and dashboards by gathering data from various data sources and transforming and enhancing the data for analysis. I used a lot of UNIX commands to find what is causing the issue in the system so I had to analyze the logs of the process using UNIX commands. I also learned SQL which I used to deal with a lot of data requests that I received from system users.

Yes, I was given a lot of responsibility in Nomura. I worked in handling the issues for a lot of critical applications that were written in-house and worked with the business people in providing the updates for critical reports and files. I was also given a project by my senior-level managers which required creating reports and dashboards to view the performance of each application by using Microsoft tool - Power BI. I was able to automate a lot of reports which saved a lot of time for my senior-level managers.

I was given a buddy during my internship who helped me settle well in the team and also gave me a good background of my team worldwide. I was work-shadowing my buddy during my early days of placement and started to pick up low critical works and then I was able to work on many high critical jobs like bouncing the server, application issues which had a huge business impact. Whenever I was stuck on any issues, my manager offered to help immediately and since my placement was virtual, I was able to give a call to my buddy or to my manager and they guided me.

All my teammates were really kind and helpful. I never struggled to get help from anybody and was even able to give a call to my second-level manager and ask him questions freely. Everyone has good teamwork and involved me in their meetings and I was given a chance to showcase my skills by creating reports and dashboards. Since my internship was virtual, my team had regular catch up calls via Webex and updated our everyday work and ask them for any help I need for that day's work which was very helpful as I never felt stuck on any issue as my team was always there to help and provide guidance.

I really enjoyed my placement as I was given a lot of opportunities to showcase my skills like using my memory power to remember the kind of system issues that happened previously, writing effective emails to the business people, and traders on the updates of critical reports and feeds. I was given a lot of responsibilities at such an early stage which gave me the confidence to improve my work-life every day. Being a Maths student I was able to apply my Maths skills by performing troubleshooting and thinking critically and logically when solving issues in the applications thereby giving me huge satisfaction.

Yes

When applying for Nomura, during the first stage you will be asked to submit your resume and write about why you want to work for Nomura and what division in Nomura you are interested in. So please update your resume and start researching Nomura on their company's website. Research on what division you are really interested in and think about how the skills you developed in university will be useful when you work in the division. Write about how Nomura is working on sustainability like environmental management and the efforts to address climate change which can be additional points to let the interviewers know about your interest in Nomura.