Future You: Life as an alumni - Alex Amoui

After leaving UWL, our graduates embark on a career journey that might take them far away from the thing they initially studied. That’s exactly what happened to Alex Amoui, who studied Business Studies with us before becoming a senior product manager at The Guardian newspaper.

a man with his hands folded over a laptop. You can only see his arms and the laptop keyboard.

Alex chose UWL because he wanted to live in London, after growing up in the small and quiet town of Guildford.

I had no idea what I wanted to do so, like a lot of students, I chose Business Studies for my degree. Originally, I planned to go down the finance route, but during my second year of A-Level Maths, I decided I maybe preferred the softer skills.”

Business Studies appealed because it taught him applicable skills that could be used in other industries. Alex had always been interested in fashion and other creative endeavours so this was a way of kick starting that career.

The city of London, showing north and south London divided by the River Thames and a cloudy skyline.

Once he started the course, however, Alex found himself enjoying it a lot.

I had a great time. I was based in East London with my friends who already lived there, so I sort of had two lives. But you know I really enjoyed UWL. I made a lot of friends on my course, but also a group of people who were all doing fashion there at the time.”

Once Alex graduated, he headed down a slightly more irregular career route, but one that he maintains makes perfect sense when you know the full story.

For his dissertation, Alex became interested in the ethics of advertising. At a networking event, he got chatting to someone who worked in something called programmatic advertising, and was setting up a company.

When I left UWL and I needed a job, literally the day after I handed in my thesis I started a two month internship. It was interesting but it was always going to be a fixed term thing. I was looking for jobs in programmatic advertising. At the time, The Guardian coincidentally were just starting to hire their first staff in their commercial advertising team and do some data analytics.”

Two computing professionals working together around a laptop

Just six weeks after graduation, Alex found himself working at a national newspaper. Despite joining The Guardian's advertising department, he was increasingly interested in the tech and data driven work.

I started off by honing my Excel skills to a basic level and then worked my way up to big data analytics. Then I began to manage a team of data analysts.”

Always hunting for the next opportunity, Alex moved into the digital optimization team, which focuses on optimizing the way The Guardian's website looks. After this, he began to shadow web developers to learn a new skill.

I’ve always been very inquisitive, taking an active interest in becoming a subject knowledge expert in what I do. Then I’m just trying to find the right teams to satisfy my curiosity. I’d ask every team I worked with for a high-level overview of what they’re doing and how it works, and that’s opened up a lot of opportunities for me.”

For the last four and a half years, Alex has been working as a product manager, which is a role where you oversee the cross functional team working with engine web developers, engineers, UX designers, researchers and data analysts to deliver a particular project. In this case that product is the Guardian website and putting journalism up on the web and the Guardian app.

I’m working a lot on the homepage, trying to make it a good experience for journalists to produce and showcase their work, but also in a way that is good for user experience so people can find what they’re looking for.”

A student walking out towards the pitchside of Twickenham Stadium with his gown and hat on.

We asked Alex for his advice for anyone starting out on their career journey:

I think it’s best to learn by osmosis, to take note of what other people are doing just by being around them and seeing what they do. Ask a lot of questions, do your own research, but also find out how people you admire structure their weeks, what habits they have.”

Find out more

Keep checking our Future You page as more information is added to help you plan for your future.
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