Enterprise Services Graduate

A lifelong passion for tech landed Ruhi Pelia a dream gig in Commonwealth Bank of Australia‘s (CBA) Enterprise Services

Ruhi Pelia has always been interested in tech, so taking high school electives to build on her IT (information technology) knowledge was a no-brainer. By the time she reached senior school, she was attending university open days to explore the different paths technology had to offer.

Ruhi went on to study a Bachelor of Business/Bachelor of Science in Information Technology at University of Technology Sydney, which further fueled her interest in tech. “As I progressed in my studies, I found myself drawn more to pursuing a career in the technology field, where innovation and creative intelligence was at the forefront of the industry,” Ruhi explains.

Ruhi now works in enterprise services at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which runs and supports the technology for the bank – from customer products to essential tools for employees. Her day-to-day involves analysing her team’s current processes and technologies to identify pain points and provide recommendations for improvements, developing tools and features to assist with automating tasks, and analysing and modelling data to help drive business proposals.

As for the coolest project she’s worked on at CBA so far? Creating a forecast tool that predicts the incoming work volume over 2021. This involved learning a new technical skill – scripting. Ruhi says the project was meaningful because she could see the impact she had made for her team and CBA’s customers. “I was also reminded that it’s never too late to learn a new skill that may originally have seemed daunting,” she says. 

Ruhi’s advice for getting into tech

• Soft skills (like communication and creativity) are super important
• Don’t feel you can’t pursue STEM because you don’t have coding experience – there are other areas, like strategy, analysis, design, management, or even social networking
• Network with whoever you can
• Be adaptable as the STEM industry is always changing

 Ruhi’s study and career pathway

• Bachelor of Business/Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney
• IT Technician, JTC Technology
• Enterprise Services Graduate, Commonwealth Bank of Australia 

This article is brought to you in partnership with CBA and originally appears in Careers with STEM: Technology 2021.

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• 5 minutes with a mechatronics engineer-turned-CBA grad
• Hang out with a digital solutions graduate engineer

Author: Louise Meers

Louise is Careers with STEM’s digital content strategist. She has a journalism degree from the University of Technology, Sydney and has spent over a decade writing for youth. She is passionate about inspiring young people to achieve their biggest goals and build a better future.