Jessica Wright
2026 Saltire Scholar
Business Systems and BI Analyst Intern, The Craneware Group
Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University
Hello, my name is Jessica Wright. I am about to enter my fourth and final year of studying computer science at Heriot-Watt University. I have had an amazing summer spending 12 weeks working as a Business Systems and BI Analyst Intern at The Craneware Group. This opportunity was made possible to me thanks to the Saltire Scholars Programme.
I first learned about the Saltire Scholars Programme at my university’s Careers Fair, where I spoke with a representative. It immediately stood out to me as an opportunity that would allow me to develop my professional skills and help to secure a meaningful summer internship.
For me, an internship wasn’t just a job for the summer. It was a chance to develop the skills I have learned in university, to fully understand what a career in technology and business could look like. In a way, it was a decider to show me if I had made the right decision in studying Computer Science. Little did I know that it would be such a rewarding and memorable experience that exceeded all my expectations. Looking back now, I can confidently say that I have made the right decision with my degree.
Over the course of the summer, I was given the opportunity to work with new technologies that I hadn’t had the chance to experience yet including Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the wider Microsoft Power Platform. From my first few weeks, I realised that this wasn’t going to be a typical internship where I simply observed from the sidelines. I was trusted to work on real business problems, support users, and contribute to projects that would have a lasting impact on the team.
From the beginning, I was involved in a wide variety of projects and tasks. A significant part of my role focused on Dynamics 365 development, where I worked on production tasks, bug fixes, system enhancements, and user support requests. I helped investigate and resolve issues relating to all aspects of the business.
What surprised me the most was how much impact relatively small changes could have. Sometimes fixing a view or creating a small automation could save people significant amounts of time or give them better visibility of the information they needed to do their jobs effectively. The project that had the biggest impact during my internship was developing a Microsoft Copilot agent for the Business Intelligence team. The goal was to create a solution that could use the team’s internal documentation stored in a SharePoint document library to answer questions and help team members find information more quickly. The agent was designed to allow users to query technical and functional documentation. Building an effective Copilot agent is much more than simply connecting an agent to a document library. One of the biggest challenges was ensuring that the information available to the agent was well-structured and detailed enough for agent to provide useful answers. This led me to reviewing the existing documentation and spending a lot of time testing the agent, I then came up with a document template to ensure that the agent could be most helpful. The impact of this work was particularly rewarding because it lay the foundations for how the team could use AI and knowledge management in the future.
One of the highlights of my internship was the people I worked with. I have had the chance to work with so many brilliant people, I feel I have gained so much from them. The team at Craneware created an environment where learning was actively encouraged and all my questions (no matter how many I asked!) was always treated as an opportunity to grow. Their support and guidance allowed me to take on projects that initially felt well beyond my capabilities. As a result, a large part of the confidence I gained this summer came from their support and the trust they placed in me along with the opportunities they gave me to take ownership of interesting projects.
Starting on the 1st of June, many of the concepts and technologies were completely new to me. By the end of my internship, I was contributing to complex projects, supporting users, and developing solutions that delivered value. This change is something I am incredibly proud of and couldn’t have achieved without my manager and the Business Intelligence team.
For anyone considering joining the Saltire Scholars Programme, I say go for it! You won’t regret the invaluable experience you will gain. This summer was a lot more than just work, it was fun and a journey I will remember.
My biggest advice would be to not doubt yourself, I struggled with feeling I didn’t know the skills needed for the job. You are not thrown in the deep end, and you aren’t expected to know everything. Saltire helped me throughout the whole process from applying to their programme to preparing for my first interview. If you are thinking about applying, just do it!
