Some jobs are so unique and desirable, you'd almost pay to do them: Guinness brewer is one; head of mischief at Paddy Power is another. What's more, these jobs don't involve performing stunts, handling dangerous animals or carrying out your work at dizzying heights.
Most TOP 1000 companies employees work in traditional roles such as in IT, human resources, marketing, business development and finance. But some have rather more unusual jobs,
The brewer
Diageo's Dublin site may be better known as the "home of Guinness", but it's also home to one of the coolest corporate gigs around – namely brewer. Andrew Savage is one of the lucky ones in the job. "My friends think that being on the Guinness tasting quality panel is reason enough to work for Guinness. But there's also the free lunch, free gym and free swimming pool, which are a great bonus," he says.
When Diageo scales up new beers from pilot to production, Savage develops the production-scale recipes, brewing them in Brewhouse No. 4. "It's great to taste the final product from these brews and I usually get to bring some bottles home to try out on my friends. Hophouse 13 Lager is a new product development I was involved in and it is a beer I really like."
As a Guinness brewmaster, Savage led the Brewhouse No. 4 project. This involved starting from scratch with a blank sheet of paper and designing a new brewhouse to brew a wide range of beer types, including iconic brands such as Guinness and Smithwicks.
Brewhouse No. 4 is one of the most modern and efficient brewhouses in the world, and is only the fourth brewhouse to be built on the Dublin site since Arthur Guinness signed the 9,000-year lease in 1759. Brewhouse No. 4 contains the largest Lauter Tun of any brewery in Europe and one of the largest in the world. “Watching this vessel with a diameter of 14 metres being slowly lifted by cranes and dropped precisely into position in the brewhouse was amazing.”
Savage isn’t the only person at Diageo to have a cool job. Feodora Heavey may have a boring job title – “process development technologist” – but her position is anything but. As a member of the brand technical innovation team, her responsibilities range from small batch flavour exploration, to creating larger brews that are enjoyed around the world, and everything in between.
Heavey also supports Diageo’s sites in Africa, and has spent time working with the company in Kenya and Ethiopia. “My time is split between brewing and supporting colleagues in Africa on new innovations and changes to process. Pilot scale brewing can be physically challenging but knowing that your beer is safely fermenting at the end of a day is really satisfying,” she says.
Working for Diageo has allowed Heavey see parts of the world that she wouldn’t have seen before. However, she says working with a team of brewers that share the same passion for quality beer as she does, is probably the best part of her job. “We’re in the middle of a beer revolution; people are open to new beer experiences which makes my job really fun. There is nothing better than seeing people in pubs enjoying a beer that I had a hand in developing.”
The ground control manager
One might think that someone with the job title "ground control" works at an airport, but in Dan Skold's case, it's for technology company Airbnb.
He is the ground control manager (EMEA) at Airbnb's European headquarters in Dublin. This team works to make Airbnb a cool place to work. "We like to think of ourselves as the 'ninjas of culture' and we have a very unique opportunity to shape the direction of this company as it is really taking off."
Skold’s role involves everything from welcoming new hires and doing their day one new hire presentation, to designing and building the company’s conference rooms, to being MC for a company-wide event. “One day we may be organising a regional event for 600 people, and then next day we’ll be looking at the design of our future office. We oversee internal communications and events, our perks programme and elements of learning and development.”
Driving an employee-led design initiative to design new conference rooms at the Dublin office has been one of the more unusual things Skold has done as part of his job. “We handed ten conference rooms over to teams of four or five employees. We gave them a budget, a timeline and told them they had to come up with a design theme and proposal, which they needed to present. Over two-three months the teams organised, designed and executed their themed conference rooms. We now have an airplane themed room, a treehouse, a recording studio, a Japanese tea room, and ship’s captain’s cabin.”
The loot buyer
While she doesn't design cool conference rooms, Emma O'Nolan does pick out cool items or "loot" for GameStop shops."We've got products like Star Wars Mood lights, Minecraft figurines and swords, Marvel sports bags ... I buy the really cool things, some of which you didn't know you could get but must have once you see them – hence the tag 'Loot'."
As the Loot Buyer for GameStop Northern Europe, O'Nolan travels to showcases and trade fairs to see what new trends are emerging and to source product for the new ranges GameStop can build. She gets previews of certain upcoming game releases and sees products that will tie in, in advance of release. As part of her job, she must stay up to date in what is popular and what's coming down the line. "I'm totally obsessed with TV and movies. Luckily, it is my duty to watch as much as possible so that we are on top of what's hot and what's not."
The mischief maker
Most people try to avoid creating controversy at work, but not Harry Dromey. As Paddy Power's head of mischief, it's his job to create it. The mischief maker spends his time pulling off outrageous stunts in order to get the bookmaker in the news. "We like to hijack the news agenda. If there is something big in the news such as the World Cup, the Ryder Cup, the Marriage Referendum or the Papal election, we will try to hijack it and get in the press," he says.
For example, prior to the World Cup, Dromey and his team trumped all analysis of the event by enlisting theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to become Paddy Power’s pundit, and create the formula for how to take the perfect penalty. “We stepped into the news vacuum and made a clean sweep of news in UK and Ireland. We also trended on Twitter,” he recalls.
In another stunt, Dromey and his team pretended the bookmaker had chopped down a portion of the Amazon rainforest, carving “C’mon England” into the trees, prior to England’s World Cup game. “We let everyone believe we were a heartless environment destroyer. We knew Twitter would go mad.” Brainstorming is a regular part of the job. “We like to stick it to The Man, The Man being a rich, powerful organisation. Sometimes in brainstorming we go too far, and we have to reel it in.”
Dromey went through eight interviews to get the job, during which the bookmaker tested the limits of his sense of humour. While it’s a fun job, he says, there is pressure to keep things fresh in order to remain entertaining for consumers but the rewards make up for it. “When a mischief project such as the ‘Tiocfaidh ar lá marriage referendum one takes off, and you see Twitter going wild and media coverage everywhere, you feel like a rock star.”
