Get to know our ASB Future Me programme

Ever been curious about ASB’s graduate programme? We sat down with Karl Heinemann and Reeshan Kishore, two of our 2022 cohort of graduates, who are now in permanent roles at ASB in our Technology team.

Graduates in the engineering practice at ASB rotate between squads in Technology for 12-18 months, giving them a chance to experience different parts of the bank, and to gain skills in different areas. Karl and Reeshan both studied at the University of Auckland and after completing the graduate programme, Karl is now a software engineer in our Payments platform and Reeshan is a software engineer in the cloud enablement platform, working on the cloud migration project. They share their experiences, what surprised them and what it was like entering the workforce in a hybrid environment.

Our graduate programme began with us working remotely – an interesting way to start your first role straight out of university. Our induction at ASB was run virtually - it was amazing to see from week one people set time aside to meet (or dial in) with us, including the Executive Leadership team and members of our squad. A few months later, once we had settled into the standard ASB working from home routine, we discovered that we were about to be thrown a curveball. We were transitioning from working virtually from home to a hybrid environment, working partly in the office and partly from home. This meant we had the daunting prospect of meeting everyone in person.  

After three months of learning, we were invited for a re-induction day – but this time in person. When showing up at the office for the first time, it was challenging to match the faces and names of 40 different graduates. Even though there were no more names on Teams to guide us, hearing each other's voices really did help in connecting to a familiar face. It was awesome to come together in person and learn how the work we do each day helps our people, customers and communities.

What’s great is that we can reach out and ask anyone a question if we need support. It’s sometimes intimidating when you are meeting experienced people in the bank, but even ASB’s most senior leaders are approachable – our Chief Engineer Dhruv still owes one of us 50 cents (we won’t share who). We’ve learnt a lot from him though and asked him many questions, so we will let him off the hook.

While we’re here at ASB to primarily develop our technical skills, opportunities are available to gain many other new skills simultaneously. Some of the other skills we’ve been able to build include; agile by playing the part of an in-team scrum master, facilitating and hosting events and contributing to lunch and learns. An ASB-wide event we’re proud to have supported was facilitating Design Thinking sessions with colleagues from all over the bank. Public speaking is a common fear among graduates, but these were motivational opportunities to build on our soft skills and meet our fellow colleagues. Even though we haven’t been here that long, it was nice to know that the event organisers trusted us to deliver.

Throughout the graduate programme, we’ve been empowered to take charge of our career and it has presented us with technical and social opportunities, developing essential skills including problem solving, learning agility and communication. When it comes to ASB’s values and mindsets, everyone walks the talk. This has made our whole experience that much more comforting and easier to get into the flow of having responsibilities in a work environment, compared to our university studies.

Future Me applications for our 2023 programme are now open and you can apply here.