RME Mechatronics Apprentice Review

Apprentices can expect to shadow technicians doing preventative maintenance activities, projects and remedying incoming trouble tickets. As competency progresses, apprentices can start to work on equipment breakdowns.

Fault finding mechanical and electrical systems. Replacing equipment such as rollers, bearings, motors, belts etc.

For the most part shifts are slow and monotonous. However when things pick up and challenging faults arise it can be quite interesting. The initial period of training in college full time at the start of the programme is a lot of fun. You will meet new people and Amazon will provide you with accommodation, travel and food expenses.

On the college side of things it is very structured and organized. However when it comes to time on site, this experience can vary depending on which site you are based at. As much as they try, the standard is not the same across the board and you will find some sites to be more active in their involvement for apprentice development.

Management are generally helpful for any issues that may arise. You are given an allowance of time (usually 4 hours per week) in which you can do college studies whilst on site. Some sites will allow longer. Given the ever changing structure of Amazon management, expect to have multiple points of contact throughout your programme.

You will receive plenty of support from college in your initial full time training period with them, after this you can still reach them through Microsoft Teams and they will try their best to support most of the time. Once Level 2 has been completed and your on site full time you will be assigned a work based assessor who are also very helpful.

The qualification you will receive through the training provider far surpasses that which is needed to be competent in the role you are working towards in Amazon. You will learn a lot more of the subject matter than you will utilize on a daily work basis.

This will depend on site. Amazon as a culture promotes multiple groups within the business that you could get involved with. From an apprentice point of view there is potential to be involved in some networking events that take place a couple of times a year. These could be Amazon specific events or National Apprentice network events.

Yes

At the time of writing this it is a very well paid apprenticeship, and if you feel like you fit within the company there is ample opportunity to progress and work upwards post-apprenticeship (if your willing to travel/relocate) due to the shear amount of sites within the UK.

Do not expect an engineering job. Amazon is incredibly safety conscious and metric driven. If any job has the potential to pose a risk to the technician they will have a contractor in to do it. Whilst there is opportunity to overhaul some broken equipment (rollers, some portable machines) in "red tag" processes, do not expect to be fixing most of the things that break. If there is a breakdown of something like a motor, you will be replacing it with another one from stores and the broken one will be sent back to the supplier. Biggest bit advice is to get involved with as many projects as possible. The layout of your site will be changing constantly and there is plenty of opportunity to play a good role in rolling these changes out. Given the nature of the day-to-day it can seem like a repeating cycle, but there is work there if you look for it, put yourself out there and show some willing.