Building a career at bp: Nurul’s story

Since primary school, Nurul has been passionate about numbers and curious as to how things work. Channelling this passion, she completed her bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering at the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia

“I love solving things, whether that be solving a problem, or improving how things work. Problem solving skills are important when it comes to engineering and were useful as I transitioned into an IT role,” she says. Joining bp as a graduate trainee almost 8 years ago, Nurul now works as a service engineering specialist.

Continuously improving the way things work

Nurul has held various roles within IT&S, always working to ensure that things work – making improvements and operational enhancements. As a finance analyst, she was responsible for managing the operations of finance related applications. Her and her team were crucial in the financial close process. She explains: “We were responsible for ensuring that all of our financial related systems were running optimally, so the business was able to complete all of the close activities and report financial results on time.”

Similarly, in her current role, Nurul manages the operations of an archival application called ATTIC which runs on the Azure platform. The objectives are twofold – to improve the time it takes to complete requests, and to drive additional users by simplifying the platform and making it increasingly user-friendly. While these tasks exist on an IT platform, they require an engineer’s problem-solving approach – something which Nurul welcomes.

A great place to build a career

Nurul has never been afraid to try new things:

Since joining the company as a graduate, bp has allowed her to do precisely that.

Reflecting on her time at bp, Nurul describes herself as privileged as her line managers have always been willing to take a risk and give her a platform to grow. “Looking back at each of my roles, I’ve realized that whenever I joined a team, I was always the least experienced member. This meant that I was challenged, and it gave me an opportunity to learn. My teams have always given me a lot of support and taken the time to sit down and explain things to me. bp is a really good place to build a career because everyone is happy to share their knowledge with you.”

Nurul also values the freedom that bp allows her to pursue her interests. With the macro movement towards cloud technologies, she asked her line managers if she could get involved in cloud migration projects in order to get a better understanding of how these solutions work.

bp’s global, supportive approach

Nurul loves travelling – especially solo backpacking which she has been doing for the past six years. The highlight of her time at bp has been working with people from all over the world: she likes how it provides different perspectives – very much like travelling does.

Nurul works predominately with people from the US, the UK and Malaysia, but she has also worked with colleagues in Indonesia, Brazil and India.

When she first joined, Nurul was also positively surprised by bp’s approach to work-life balance. She truly values the number of programmes that are in place to ensure that a positive work-life balance is achieved, and she has always felt supported. “Apart from flexible working hours, there is also the Employee Assistance Programme, which you can call for support about virtually anything – if you need a reference, a doctor, or to talk about personal issues. We are living in a stressful, unusual world, so having all these things available at your fingertips is really great.”