Software Developer Review

As a software developer in a small team, my role in incredibly varied and can range from developing new systems and processes, to managing database, web servers and other infrastructure. My activities also extend to meeting with management and stakeholders to discuss problems and opportunities, and to give recommendations for the road forward from a technical point of view. Lastly I also help train or coach individuals on our systems and with general minor computer skills.

I went in to the course expecting the programme to enhance my knowledge of programming directly, however programming has been a very small component of the course. While it has given me new skills and understanding it has actually been everything around software development that has given me these new skills, for example an understanding of how to structure and manage projects. This knowledge has meant that I can approach my projects in a more advanced way which has indirectly helped my programming skills dramatically.

I enjoy the programme to extent that learning new things is always quite fun. However the non-learning aspects of the programme, such as time management, assignments and exams have been incredibly brutal. I feel that the scheme has been set up with no consideration to the operational requirements of the business and the effect of that is the business has no consideration for the time requirements needed to do these activities. This means that it is very easy to fall behind on the demonstrative aspects of the course (Course work, exam preparation etc) and can mean that new operational requirements can very easily demand my attention, causing me to spend all day working at work, and all evenings and weekends working at home on school work trying to catch up.

The programme as a whole, looking down at it from the top appears fairly well structured which is quite deceptive and one quickly realises that the individual aspects of the modules within the course, such as the weekly materials are incredibly lackluster and feel very dated. While I have managed to work round this, I feel that is more to do with my motivation personally rather than the structure of the course itself. I would like to see these materials totally refreshed and to be actual produced videos, rather than just a lecturer filming their screen as they go through a powerpoint made for a course 6 years ago. Canvas is also not a very well polished system and many aspects of it that could be used to help improve the structure are just simply ignored by the tutors. I believe this to be because they do not have to training to realise those features may be of use.

My employer has little consideration for the requirements of my course, and while they sometimes do their best to give me time to work through it, I find that more often than not my plans do not stand up against operational requirements. Further to this, being derailed one week does not guarantee I can catch back up on that day the next - As if the business cannot afford for me to be away 1 day one week, what makes you think they can afford 2 days the next? I do not feel that the department has been fully bought on board with the benefits of the course and view it more as a tickbox exercise, rather than something that will pay dividends in the future via an enhanced skillset.

My experience with my skills coach and the lecturers has varied wildly. In general, they're very good. My skills coach is incredibly attentive and will help when I ask, while keeping me mostly in line the rest of the time. This extends to the lecturers as well who are general very happy to discuss whatever, whenever. The majority of them, you can tell are not just here for a pay cheque and actually genuinely care about education. Some of the programming-specific courses (Introduction to C#, OOP Programming) however are very lacking and it is evident that the lecturers do not have much experience with the concepts they're discussing. Indeed for one of them, the lecturer told us he had only learnt C# very recently for the module we were on; This meant he was not able to do much more than read the materials verbatim.

It has helped immensely. As previously mentioned, I came into this expecting to come out of it a better programmer; I did not know about the other aspects of software development around management of projects and best practice so did not know I could improve on them or even that I needed them. The course has taken me as a programmer and filled in those gaps so I now realise the difference between just typing some code and being a programmer, versus managing and organising projects and the meta-aspects around programming to become a developer.

There are not. Occasionally schemes will pop up every now and again, for example one year we had a yoga instructor come in and do lessons for free; However the take-up was so poor that this quickly stopped. I believe again that this is to do with the operational side of the business not being in tune with the humanitarian side of it - The business operationally it quite demanding so the employees do not have time to do such things.

Yes

This answer comes with caveats - I would recommend the AA to a friend in terms of the entry level positions available. The AA is incredibly diverse in terms of roles and if you can prove value, then you can carve out your own little niche wherever you can find it. This means you can accumulate experience quite easily which is a huge boon for something with very little of it, however I would not recommend it to somebody looking for a mid-level position as the pay and benefits do not quite stack up against the industry.

The AA is a fantastic place to gain vital experience and is a very steady, stable workplace. Senior management are generally very open are at current, the best they've been in years. The business itself however is incredibly demanding and many of those I work with end up "taking their work home with them", some being unable to switch off entirely. If you like an environment where you can put in as much work as you want, this will be it.