Cloud Security Review

My Job Role is: Cloud Security and I'm a first year apprentice! My day to day tasks involve being part of the future NGFW designs and development. This involved configuring and developing a possible option to be put forward as part of a cloud offering. In addition to this I also contact external vendors to query problems.

BT internally have a intranet with training available on many subjects. They also many opportunities for external training with Vendors. So far I have a day training with AWS (Amazon Web Services). I have also had a day training with IXIA. Future training courses include Symantec and Fortinet which will give me a certification at the end. From going on these training courses I am learning that each vendor is different and they each do things differently. From doing this I can looking at what each vendor is able to do and make easy comparisons.

I think the programme is fantastic! The team I am in is so broad in knowledge that I can be certain that each person in our team has knowledge on one of my questions. My team are fantastic for help to! If you have something you are struggling with you can easily ask someone within the team! So far it has met my expectations and more. I have enjoyed ever second of it! And can't want to see whats in store for the future!

When completing a project you definitely feel self satisfaction and recently at our team meeting I was highlighted to the team as "fantastic work" about the current Glassfish/APEX work I have been doing as part of the application. We also get e-cards if we have done something really well!

After working for BT for 10 month and having time to settle in. During the start of my apprenticeship there was a few issues with the structure of our apprenticeship and how everything would fit together. During the last few months everything is now much more organised and we now have a timeline for our NVQ and projects that we need to complete. From an apprentice point of view we have an apprentice coach manager who helps us with our NVQ and general apprenticeship enquiries. From a work point of view we have a a day-to-day work manager who works in the office with us. Then we have another manager who we speak to remotely.

We do get a lot of support from our apprentice coach manager. There is a requirement that we meet every 6 weeks to fill out a form to confirm if we are happy with our apprenticeship and if any changes need to be made. Generally we get a good response to issues that we come across.

There is lots of support from different people. The HR Website is great to look at general BT queries. In addition to this there is lots of support available from our day to day manager and apprentice coach who can help us if we need support.

My experience from my first year salary is average. However each year we get £3,500 increase which is fantastic! From a costs perspective it is expensive to me to get to work (Travel costs £225 a month). But the travel costs is well worth it for my job/apprenticeship.

Yes there are quite a few opportunities outside of work. BT like and ask you to register any volunteering you complete within the BT system. Every year a special BT Apprentices & Grads event is created where we can all go to London and network and get a better idea of what everybody does!

Yes

I would definitely! I would definitely recommend BT to a friend. The amount of opportunities that are available is fantastic. The amount of support and knowledge that BT has across the company is huge and you can always find and answer or a start to another question somewhere!

Sell yourself in the application process with lots of enthusiasm - How much do you actually want the job? At the interview show even more enthusiasm and show examples of any previous experiences that you have had. The process of registering for the apprenticeship and going through the interview was fantastic and I really enjoyed it!