Application Developer Review

My role mainly revolves around the manual testing of software - I write and execute test scripts to ensure adequate requirement coverage. I also get mentorship from the development team on my project and am learning the best coding practices and gaining experience of corporate programming. For my scheme, we do 4 days in-office work, and 1 day of study with the selected university.

I have learned a lot about how to do testing to meet specific requirements, and writing test scripts and test cases for this as well as raising defects where necessary. I have also developed a lot in terms of public speaking and networking, as those are core skills at IBM and there are many opportunities to work on them.

I really do enjoy my program; I think the balance of work to study is good and being able to have a set day off from work to do my degree work is great. It can get very stressful when exam season hits or lots of courseworks are due, but there is a lot of support from both the company and the university. The course content is also great - there is a bit of business and a lot of tech, and you get to see the material in action in your day job.

Considering we are only the third year to go through the programme, I think it is very well structured. Sometimes the university communication gets confusing, as they have to design timetables differently for us compared to normal degree students, but the actual course is well-split into modules with online lectures and materials, and the objectives of each year are clear from the beginning.

A lot of support. Truly, we are very well-supported. Our employer provide us with a dedicated Early Professionals Manager who helps us both with the university side and employer side of things - there for advice, encouragement, and support. We are also assigned 'buddies' who have been in the company and can answer any new-joiner questions we have. I have an additional 'buddy' who is a third-year on my degree course who is there to answer any degree-related questions I have, which is brilliant. We also have a university contact who is the main contact between the company and the university for our course, who is available for extra support as well.

Quite a bit - our lecturers are always on hand to answer any questions we have about the content. They will also set up 'surgery sessions' which are basically online meetings (our study is primarily remote) to discuss issues we have with courseworks or certain module aspects. There is a dedicated university contact on their side as well who is our main source of contact with the university and always just an email away from helping.

This is difficult as not every apprentice has the same job role, so we do different things which relate to different aspects of our degree. Being technically-oriented, the programming and testing techniques that we are taught as part of our degree help me with my daily role to an extent. However, the first year is very foundational and so covers the basics but will not be a huge help for actually contributing in a development role, for example. It is necessary to start somewhere, though, and solidifying the groundings will definitely help in the long-run.

There are so many. At the main sites especially there are always things going on. Employees have the option to join a 'Club', which organises subsidised activities at the specific location - my local one offers karate, yoga, a rifle range, dancing, etc. and there are always football and cricket games in the week (to partake in). There are also professional networking events - for example, once a month each site has an optional get-together to meet new people of all levels over a drink.

Yes

They are a great place to work with a lot of opportunities for development in loads of different areas, and there is so much support for young professionals. The good thing about working for such a large company is that there are so many different areas to get involved with - you can literally start a new career without moving companies if you wanted to. And the training they provide is brilliant - there is an entire platform just dedicated to continued learning, and its accessible to all employees.

While qualifications are important, IBM are more focussed on the personality of an applicant. Your strength of character - passion for tech/business, desire to learn, confidence and drive - is what will make you stand out. You need to demonstrate that this is where you actually want to be, and do the research on the company to back that up.