Software Development Engineer Apprentice Review

My role includes creating and updating software, my role is within a backend engineering department, involving using Scala and AWS tools such as API gateway, Lambda, and Cognito to make backend systems. I write, review and test code, and participate in meetings to discuss requirements for different projects. I spend a lot of time learning from other team members with demonstrations and writing example code to help understand a new concept. 20% of my time at work is spent at QA for training purposes, with lessons and activities.

I have learnt an incredible amount at amazon since starting. Almost everyday I am learning a new programming concept that I use in one of the projects. I'm also able to retain new information easier as I am applying it in the workplace rather than just learning the theory. In the apprenticeship, I am constantly learning from my mentor and teammates which is great for my development as I am able to learn from professional engineers with years of experience so I can learn the best practices and methodologies. By learning all of the information it has helped me become more proficient as an engineer and makes me more confident in my knowledge.

I enjoy my job, so far I have learnt a lot of information that would be difficult to self teach, I have gained experience in many AWS products which involves modern technologies. The work is rewarding because you can show the finished project in team meetings and see your project being used in real use cases. The work is also very challenging, amazon has a very complex ecosystem and can be difficult to understand when starting, this often requires researching documentation and tutorials to understand properly. Amazons resources for engineers are not tailored to apprentices, often using advanced terminology. Challenging work is great for my career development, but can also cause a bit of confusion when the concepts are difficult to grasp. In all cases, my teammates have always helped me with difficult concepts.

The apprenticeship training side of the job is very disorganized, often there is no communication to apprentices about required tasks and when there is, there is very little information given. On the actual job, it is very organized. as an apprentice I am a full member of the team and participate in the same activities and meetings as all the other team members, projects are structured well, with clear instructions and frequent meetings to discuss developments.

Amazon gives me a lot of support, whether it be queries, misunderstandings or needing help there is always someone to talk to. All apprentices are assigned a mentor, who is usually an SDE 2/3 on their team, you go to your mentor for any questions about programming or team related work. I speak to my mentor the most, and they are very helpful in improving on the job. Newer apprentices are also assigned a buddy, who is another apprentice who joined a year before them, you ask your buddy about their experience, tips or anything related to the apprenticeship.

The QA training provider does not provide enough support for the qualification. Little information is given to apprentices, though in retrospect, the qualification is not particularly challenging compared to the job, most apprentices exceed the level 4 apprenticeship standard within the first couple months based on knowledge gained on the job. QA has lessons every 2/3 months based on a particular programming concept, and then an exam shortly after. Overall, there is not much support from QA when working towards my qualification.

Since starting, I have learnt absolutely nothing useful from the training provider that has allowed me to perform better in my role. There are a few reasons for this: - All apprentices do the same course, however, almost all apprentices do completely different work within Amazon, ie frontend web development, working with databases, making IOS/android apps etc. because of this, its difficult to have a course that tailors to everyone, especially as the work becomes more complex at amazon. - The course is outdated, there is no mention of modern development tools/languages such as noSQL, typescript, serverless etc. Amazon uses very modern technology and the course cannot keep up with that. - The course is very basic, it is simply not possible to have work based on the course because amazon is such a large company with many advanced tools and concepts. because of this, I have to spend my time learning the advanced tools used at amazon (which is good for my development), which has nothing to do with the basic concepts covered in the course. The real value of the apprenticeship is on the job, learning from your mentor, which I think is an incredible learning experience.

Yes, everyones team has social events very frequently, which could be playing a game together for example. Amazon has adapted well to WFH, and despite not being able to see your colleagues and go to an in person event, they do a good job in current circumstances. before WFH, there were a lot of sports events to go to and group socials to help you fit in well within the team. There are also apprentice events every few months which is very nice.

Yes

Amazon is very good tech company to work for as they are using modern technologies and are very influential in the development world especially with AWS and alexa. This is great for your career development and will allow you to get useful experience in popular frameworks/languages which will suit you well for the future. Amazon treat the apprentices very well, and are very supportive, I strongly believe that working with experienced engineers at Amazon is the best way to develop our knowledge and learn.

Apply to as many apprenticeships as possible, to improve confidence in interviews and assessment centres. Have programming experience, in any language, and be able to answer Leetcode style questions (easy difficulty) whilst having good time complexity and space complexity. try and show your ability to learn in the interview process as that is the key quality amazon is looking for. If you have any personal projects, that will help your application a lot as they show experience, and include what you learnt from it.