Software Engineer Review

My role involves working for a private sector client, I work within the IT security team as an IT assurance analyst, ensuring that fire fighter ID's are used responsibly as well as other confidential activities. This has to be done alongside daily university work and other internal training/responsibilities that are required from Cap.

I have learned a lot of new interpersonal and technical skills over the course of my apprenticeship, management push you every year to improve and develop in areas of interest to the company as well as those of your personal interest. In this regard, degree apprenticeships are very good if you would like to improve as quickly as possible.

I do really enjoy the programme however it is a lot of work when compared to normal university students and with the way in which the programme is run, you lose the opportunity to meet and spend time with your university friends as you will be put on projects with professionals all around the country. Capgemini are also very unorganised in the way that they let students take study leave to deal with university workload.

From the university perspective they are quite well organised, timetables, module information and key dates are clearly provided ahead of time to give sufficient time to prepare. However the university don't communicate very well with Capgemini for some information, the relationship between the apprenticeship provider and the sponsoring company could definitely be improved.

Over the past 4 years we get 22 days of study leave a year to take to study however we should have half a day every week throughout the year along side this to study for our apprenticeship, which Capgemini havent provided at all. This is now being raised but for the duration of my apprenticeship this has been a problem that has just been looked over.

We get provided with a lot of support from Aston University regarding the apprenticeship with the lecturers always being available to email and speak to as well as providing the opportunity to speak in video calls even out of normal office hours which is really beneficial as work can get very hectic.

Honestly, the content from the modules aren't always relevant to my role however in some other business areas the skills from some of the modules are more tailored towards work we do in our day to day lives. Overall the mix of business and software modules does work well with our job roles compared to a solely computer science focussed degree.

Yes there are a lot of social events available and networking events, however with covid a lot of these have had to be virtual, there has been a lot of effort but in by Capgemini to ensure that their is a good chance to network within the company. However due to people working all over the country there arent any sports teams that I am aware of.

Yes

If you're looking to develop and constantly keep improving, Capgemini is a great company to do that, they also hire people with similar mindsets and based on personality as well as just qualifications which ensures that there is a nice internal working environment full of likeminded individuals with similar goals and ambitions

Please make sure to prepare for the interviews/assessment centres thoroughly but keep your options open as Capgemini as an apprenticeship provider have a lot of problems, and even though they are being worked on at the moment but the life of a consultant isn't also for everyone. Long weeks away from home and an inconsistent lifestyle is hard for those who love routine, think about your compatibility with the consultant lifestyle in a lot of detail before applying.