Automation Software Engineer Review

My role involves automating solutions for other teams within the department. This could be setting up automated alerting for a team when a certain message appears in a system log, or adding a new resource to our automation. A lot of my work is done based off requests that come through from these other teams.

I had no technical background knowledge before starting the apprenticeship so everything that i have learnt, from basic mainframe architecture to coding within languages such as JCL and COBOL, has all been developed on the course. Skills that I have developed have been more business related like time management and organization. I have found however that 95% of the content on the degree has been unrelated to my specific job role.

The programme has without a doubt been the hardest thing I have completed in my life, as working a full time job and doing a part time degree leaves little time for anything else. I am however so grateful that I have been able to earn a degree with no fees to pay. Some of the content has also been quite fun to learn - such as web development, and it's a good skill to have basic knowledge on, even if not related to my job role.

This is the biggest flaw in the apprenticeship in my opinion, and some serious work needs doing to improve this area. There has been several times throughout the apprenticeship, even before COVID-19, where poor planning cause unnecessary and unfair amounts of stress to the students around things such as submissions. Students should not have to work out how sensitive work will be submitted to the university, but should be decided between the university and the employer, but there seems to be an extreme breakdown of communication somewhere between the two.

This is another area that I think could have benefitted from better communication between the employer and the university as this was left to managers discretion. There were some students who got more than the recommended 1 day a week for university work if they needed it, and some that didn't get even the 1 day. This caused an unfair advantage to some students over others, depending on where they worked within the business.

The support received from the university greatly depends on what teachers you are assigned. I was very lucky to have [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyApprenticeship Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] across multiple years of the apprenticeship, and they were both a pleasure to work under and gave 100% of the support I needed, and made my time at the university less stressful. It is unfortunate that other teachers I had during other years were not as supportive, so this is maybe something that needs to be made more general, rather than being the luck of the draw.

I think the degree has overall given me a decent base knowledge of technical subjects that I would not have had a chance to study otherwise (e.g. web development as previously mentioned). However, I feel that most of my role could have been learnt without the degree, as most subjects did not relate to my role, but were just good for a general basic knowledge of IT. I found the business units to be most unhelpful.

We have many extra curricular activities to get involved in (pre-pandemic) such as; Tennis Rugby Fitness Classes Conferences such as GSE that we get to attend Since the pandemic there has also been things such as gaming forums/apprentice quiz sessions that are all available to network whilst working from home.

Yes

I have found that Barclays has a great working environment and a friendly atmosphere. The offices had many facilities such as gyms/breakout areas/tennis courts etc that were all great for decompressing from the stresses of the work day. They have a lot of great programmes to support employees of the LGBTQ+ and other communities, and are a very accepting place of work.

Barclays is a good place to work, but you need to be prepared to work hard. You do not have to have a background knowledge of the area you are applying to, they provide all training for most roles, so don't let a lack of knowledge hold you back from a role you desire.