We value career progression at ZeroLight, and during 2020 with all of our employees working remotely it's been super important to continue to recognise those individuals who are pushing themselves to the next level within their career. With growing demand for ZeroLight products from our automotive customers during the last 12 months, there has been ample opportunities for individuals to step up and lead new projects, and with over 50 new starters in the year, we've needed to find new leaders within the workforce to take ZeroLight to new heights.
As such we've had a large number of promotions in 2020. This ranges from junior members of staff to director level. We take on a lot of new graduates annually into junior roles within the company, most typically in disciplines like Art & Programming. In terms of progression, the majority of these grads move out of their initial junior role within 1-2 years of starting work with ZeroLight, as they develop their skills and start to take on more responsibility. One such graduate is Darrin, who studied Computer Games Art at Teesside Uni and joined ZeroLight in 2019:
"In my first year at ZeroLight, starting as a graduate 3D artist I learned our full pipeline to create the highest quality vehicles, our quality standards and the practices that we follow in order to maintain those standards among a wide variety of different clients. As one of my first pieces of work at ZeroLight, I was assigned to one of our newest clients in LUCID, this involved us creating something not only visually stunning, but interactively impressive also for their launch in September 2020. This provided a challenge for me as a graduate artist and pushed me to develop my eye for quality, my technical knowledge, and my abilities to interact with clients. This project was the launchpad for all the skills that I've developed to this day and continue to use on current projects, which lead to me being promoted to the role of a Vehicle Artist."
Darrin celebrated his promotion to 3D Artist in August 2020.
Similarly, we have others moving into Senior or Lead positions as new projects come on board. There is no particular time limit on career progression at ZeroLight, and those have repeatedly exceeded objectives and have shown an appetite for taking on more responsibility can progress in a short amount of time. There have been a few promotions recently from manager level to director, with several staff taking the leap into this senior management role.
In 2020 I moved from Talent Development Manager to Director which was a great achievement for me, in my 10th year of employment with the company. I started out in an admin role originally, so to now be a member of the senior management team is a brilliant new challenge.
Erin, Talent Dev Director.
Similar our Creative Manager Helton also made the leap to Creative Director, leading the design team, in 2021:
Working hard toward the objectives that were agreed with my line manager and stepping out of my comfort-zone were the key elements that resulted on my progression.
With more exciting products being developed at ZeroLight, we believe that 2021 will see even greater career progression as more individuals step up to become the next generation of leaders at ZeroLight.