Gareth Bright, Enterprise Architect tells us what he enjoys about working at Hastings Direct as well as his aspirations for his team. Could you be interested in being a part of this bright future?

Tell us about your background and what led you to Hastings Direct.

After graduating I worked at Microsoft for nearly 10 years as a consultant working with numerous enterprise and public sector organisations mainly on large ‘light house’ projects. The highlight was undertaking the lead consulting role for designing and building the London Olympics 2012 Administration network for which Microsoft was engaged to undertake. The breadth and scale of projects during this time has proved to be a great foundation for my later career, which has progressed in to Architecture roles. After leaving Microsoft, my fiancée and I were looking to move to East Sussex, which led me to joining Hastings Direct, buying a house and getting married all within three months! Five years later I’ve never looked back and still enjoy the same positive and inclusive culture at Hastings Direct that first struck me when I joined. 

Can you tell us a bit about the work you do and the technologies your team work with at Hastings Direct?

My role within IT at Hastings Direct is to define and maintain the integrity and consistency of the end to end technical architecture in order to deliver Hastings Direct business and technology strategies. This requires working with a wide range of business and IT roles within the company, from informing and guiding business requirements to shaping the technical detail required to deliver them. 
To ensure our business strategy and goals can be realised we are increasingly working with a wider range of technologies from established vendors, open source solutions, cloud providers, partners and solution providers. This variety along with the breadth and the need to continually learn to keep the company’s architecture moving forwards are the key aspects I enjoy about the role.

Looking to the future, what are you excited about for Hastings Direct and how will your team look to contribute to those plans?

The transformation to a digital company is what excites me most for Hastings Direct, not only being part of the process but the team actively influencing and guiding the transformation, leading on a number of the key technical aspects to provide the technology architecture foundations.

Why should someone consider joining the IT team at Hastings Direct?

If you are looking for a challenge that will bring variety with the requirement to directly lead and influence technical solutions within you area of expertise, this could be the opportunity for you. Working collaboratively with colleagues in adjoining and related roles to ensure the best possible technical solutions along with a continuous need to learn, grow and innovate within a supportive and talented team environment are just some of the reasons myself and many colleagues come back to Hastings Direct on a Monday morning.


If you would like to find out more about the opportunities in our IT team, click here