University scheme
EGM takes a small number of university students each year into one of two roles. We train them ourselves before they do anything that reaches a client, supervise them while they work, and pay them a share of the work that comes from them. There is no cost to the student, or to their university, at any point.
Both roles are self-employed and commission only, and that is stated first because it is the thing most people want to know. There are no set hours, no targets and no obligation to work in any given week. Studies come first, and a student may pause at any time by telling us.
Brand Ambassador
A commercial role. Most of the organisations we are useful to are not looking for software. They know that something takes too long, goes wrong or has become hard to control, and they have not connected that to anything we do. You notice those organisations where you are, at your university, in societies, part-time jobs, family businesses and placements, open a conversation about the problem rather than the product, work out whether it is serious, and hand the serious ones to the company in a state it can act on.
You are not expected to be technical. You do not quote, design or negotiate anything, and the commercial conversation is the founder's from the point you hand over.
Who it suits
Any subject. Students who are curious about how organisations work and can write something a busy owner-manager would read to the end.
Your training
The role carries its own professional training course, completed before you start. It covers the company and what it does, how to read an organisation for operational problems, how to open and qualify a conversation, what may and may not be said on the company's behalf, and the law on contacting people. It is signed off individually and in writing, and until then you contact nobody outside the company.
Supervision
A session with a company director every two weeks for your first term, then monthly. Your first three handovers are reviewed before they go anywhere.
How you are paid
3.5% of every amount a client pays the company under a contract that came from you, rising to 5% once you have been active for three months and three of your contracts have been signed and have paid a first instalment. Our contracts commonly run into five figures, so one introduction is worth having. The other side of that is equally true: introductions are infrequent, one in a term is a good term when you are starting, and nothing is paid until the client pays us.
Software Operator
A technical delivery role. You learn the company's method for taking a software engagement from a first brief to a handed-over, running system, and you are accountable for one thing above all others: that what the company states about a piece of software is true. You decide what is built, in what order and to what standard, control the machine it is built and tested on, read the evidence, commission independent review, and check the finished system yourself before anyone says it works.
It is not a programming role. You do not write code and you are never asked to read it. No programming background is needed and none is taught.
Who it suits
Any subject. Students who are precise, organised and comfortable holding a process to a standard, and who would rather say "I have not verified that" than "it should be fine".
Your training
The role carries its own professional training course, the Software Operator Programme: twelve modules across four stages, each with a written guide, templates and an assessed piece of work. There are no examinations. You are assessed on the documents you produce, by the standard the company applies to its own software. You start on a completed past engagement so you can compare your work with the original, and you touch no live client work until your first evidence document has been signed off in writing.
Supervision
A session with the programme director every two weeks. Every evidence document is read against its logs. You advance by meeting each stage's exit criteria, not by elapsed time.
How you are paid
3.5% of every amount a client pays the company on an engagement you have worked on, rising to 5% once you complete the programme. Two things to be clear about before you apply: the training itself earns nothing, and you begin earning when you are assigned to a live engagement, which happens when your evidence is good enough rather than on a date we can give you in advance. Nothing is paid until the client pays us. The company provides the machine.
Specific to the role
Each role has its own professional training course, written for the work that role does and to the standard the company holds itself to. An ambassador is trained in commercial qualification, written business communication, the company's record-keeping and data protection in practice. An operator is trained in specification, evidence-based verification, independent review and decision discipline. Neither course is an induction, and every skill in them is one you can be questioned on at interview.
At the company's cost
Training is free at every point, including if you leave part way through. There is no training fee, no repayment clause and no clawback of any kind. The company pays for the course, the supervision and, for operators, the machine.
Signed off, not attended
Completing a course means being signed off individually and in writing, not sitting through it. Until that point you do nothing that reaches a client. After it, supervision continues: the training does not stop when the work starts.
Apply
A short written note and a conversation. We are looking for judgement and honesty rather than experience, and we say so here so that nobody rules themselves out for lack of it.
Select
We select a small number of students for each role. Every applicant is told the outcome and why, and unsuccessful applicants are given something useful about their application rather than a form reply.
Train
The course for your role, then written sign-off. Until that point you do nothing that reaches a client. Neither course is timed to a calendar: you finish when the work you produce meets the standard.
Work
In your own time, at your own pace, with no set hours and no minimum activity. Your studies take precedence in all circumstances. If you pause, an operator's programme stage is held rather than reset.
Earn
Commission on the work that comes from you, paid in stages as the client pays the company. You keep your own record of what you are owed, check it against the company's monthly statement, and invoice us. Commission is paid gross and you are responsible for your own tax.
Review
With you at each stage or term and at the end of each academic year. At the end of it we write a reference that describes what you actually did, with examples.
- Basis
- Self-employed contractor, commission only. No salary, no retainer and no hourly rate. It is not employment and it is not a work placement in the employment sense.
- Hours
- None set. No minimum activity and no targets. A student may do nothing for a whole term without being in breach of anything.
- Age
- You must be 18 or over.
- Student visas
- The engagement is self-employed, and a person in the UK on a Student visa is not permitted to be self-employed. The roles are therefore not open to those students on these terms. We would rather lose an applicant than put their immigration position at risk.
- Cost
- None, at any point, including if you leave. No training cost, no repayment, no clawback.
- Where
- Neither role requires attendance at our premises. The operator role is carried out entirely remotely, on a machine the company issues or approves. The ambassador role is mostly remote, and also involves meeting people at events and in ordinary business settings, in your own time and at your own choosing.
- Both roles
- A student may hold both. They are engaged and paid separately, and one does not reduce the other.
- Your university
- You represent yourself and the company, not your university. You may not use its name, logo, email account, mailing lists, rooms or systems for our work unless it has agreed in writing, and you may not imply that it endorses or is partnered with us.
- Ending it
- Either side can end the engagement with one month's notice, or immediately by agreement.
- The documents
- The full terms of engagement and the job description for each role are sent before any conversation about joining, and we would rather you read them first. Where this page and the terms differ, the terms apply.
- Questions
- Applications, and anything this page does not answer, go to careers@egmfamilyholdings.com. Universities write to partners@egmfamilyholdings.com.
An offer to partner, at no cost and with the position written down.
We offer to work with universities directly: to take a small number of their students into either role each year, train them at our cost, supervise them while they work, and pay them on results. We ask for very little in return, and none of it is a commitment to us: a route to advertise the roles, whichever suits you, and a named contact we can be accountable to.
The legal position of the arrangement is set out in full in the partnership offer rather than assumed, including the points a placements or careers team will want to check, and we would rather hear a differing view before a student is affected than after. Where a course requires an assessed or credit-bearing placement, that is a different arrangement, agreed in writing in advance under the university's own placement agreement, and we are open to it.
Guest sessions are offered whether or not the scheme goes ahead: how small businesses actually buy software, what employers look for in a first commercial conversation, and what a career in software delivery now involves.
Universities write to partners@egmfamilyholdings.com. We send the partnership offer in full and name the person you will deal with.
Write to the company- CostNone to the university and none to the student.
- Staff timeAlmost none. A route to students and a named contact.
- ReachPart-time, distance, mature and commuter students, for whom a fixed-hours placement is often impossible.
- ReportingHow the scheme is going, in outline, each year, and immediately if anything goes wrong.
- StoppingA university can ask us to stop recruiting from it at any time, for any reason, and we will.
Send a short note saying who you are, what and where you are studying, and which role you have in mind. If it is the Brand Ambassador role, add one thing you have noticed an organisation doing inefficiently. If it is the Software Operator role, add one time you found out that something you had been told was true was not. There is no form and no automated screening. We reply to everyone. Send it to careers@egmfamilyholdings.com.
Apply by email