Apprentice Data Scientist Review

Overall, my role is to utilise data to support colleagues, customers and consumers. My day-to-day can look quite different depending on what kind of project I'm working on. I could be maintaining and improving the data surfaced in our business intelligence tools to support colleagues across the business, building new data products to solve a business problem, or developing data models to help understand our data, answer questions and help build solutions.

I've learnt so many new skills. I've learnt programming languages like SQL, JSON, Python and LookML, new statistical methods and how to build models and visualisations, version control using Git. I've also learnt a lot of non-tech skills, like how to effectively collaborate with people across the business, how to go about solving a business problem, stakeholder management, time management, organisation and project management.

I really enjoy the work-based learning and experience. The taught element of the course is all online - its informative, but not hugely engaging.

In terms of timelines of when things will be delivered and assignments are due in, its well structured. The lectures/webinars are highly variable and it depends who is teaching - sometimes its a well delivered and structured experience, other times it can be a two-hour long ramble.

I'm incredibly well supported by my employer. If I have trouble understanding something or need some guidance, I know I can ask people for help and they'll always have time for me. I'm put on different projects in different areas to make sure I'm getting a wide range of experiences to support my learning and development. I can attend in-house training courses to develop my technical and non-technical skills. If I have any issues at all, there's a wealth of people I can turn to.

I'm incredibly supported by my coach - he always makes sure I know where I'm up to, what the next steps are, and what I need to do to achieve my qualification. The lecturers are very open to feedback and genuinely want us to do well, so when we have questions or feel we need extra support they're very responsive.

It provides a good guide as to what sort of areas I can look into in my role (e.g. developing models, building dashboards, etc.) so I can contextualise the learning into my role. The course also makes us aware of new and emerging technologies we might not be aware of otherwise, which we can then bring back into our roles. However, the qualification does feel a bit disjointed and doesn't cover some things which my employer would view as essential.

There's so much to get involved with! We have: A variety of sports clubs - football, badminton, running to name a few Social networks - there's so many! For example, LGBT+, disability and neurodiversity, women, age, early careers, book club, boardgames club, film club, music club, and many more Networking events and conferences - we're encouraged to attend and speak at events such as PyData, Her+Data, Queer in Tech, etc. People attend a wide variety of conferences all over the world. Volunteering opportunities - we get two volunteering days a year, I've used mine to help a local park, animal sanctuaries and planted flowers on my local high street

Yes

We enjoy flexible hybrid working, the culture is fantastic and I feel like I'm a community, there's so much support available and we can get involved in so many interesting things, from volunteering days to educational outreach to sports to social clubs. There's lots of room to grow and develop - it's actively encouraged and supported to continually develop. The work itself is really rewarding, and I find it to be challenging and engaging, but never stressful.

You don't need to be a petrol-head to work for Auto Trader! Do your research into the company - we're really proud of our history, culture and values, so definitely get clued up around them. Be yourself and let your personality shine through!