Software Engineer Review

I’m a software engineer working in an agile team of around a dozen people. My working days start with a daily stand-up meeting where we discuss what we did yesterday, what we’ll be doing today, and any blockers we might have. I then spend most of my days writing production code for whatever project I’m working on at the time. So far in my 2 years here I’ve worked on 3 projects, and I’m about to start a fourth.

During my apprenticeship I’ve learnt a wide variety of skills, both technical and soft. Through the course of my work, my coding skills have scaled rapidly as I’ve learned new languages, design patterns and best practices e.g. in git, code/file structure, testing. I’ve also learned about the differences between agile and waterfall projects and about software lifecycles. In lectures I’ve broadened my understanding, learning more about project management, networks, databases and cyber security.

I’ve been really enjoying my programme. It’s been hard work at times, but I’ve learned a lot and my line manager (and my whole team) have been really supportive in giving me the time I need to work on my uni things, as well as helping me with the work code. I’ve been given large sections of code to challenge myself while still getting the support from senior members where I got stuck, which means I’ve written code that I can be proud of and which adds real value for the company and our customers.

The course can be poorly structured at times. For the most part things are well planned out, but where change is needed (e.g. in recent times with covid bringing remote learning) the bureaucracy involved with the company collaborating with the university starts to show. Having said this though they do seem to have listened to feedback and made changes accordingly for the year below us and the university in particular gives ample opportunity to give feedback, with surveys circulated after every module.

The feeling I get from my friends in my year is that support can vary as it usually comes from your team and line manager. Personally though my team has been incredibly supportive, and are always happy for me to take time out of work to work on university work where I have deadlines coming up. My line manager in particular is often interested to know what I am studying and takes a genuine interest in my course.

I’ve found that lecturers often go beyond their role to offer support. While there are some lecturers I feel are more suited to my learning style than others, they all feel like they want us to succeed and are usually prompt in replying to emails and Teams messages, even on evenings and weekends.

Training from the University does often feel a little disconnected from my work for the company. This is in part due to the wide variety of roles undertaken by the apprentices who all work in different areas of the business in different sized teams with different responsibilities. The way I see it is I get a wide knowledge base from the University in both technical and management skills, and then I learn develop a subset of those skills beyond how the course teaches as part of my job where I am particularly specialised in code development.

The company does provide some social activities; there are weekly graduate breakfast meetings for a chance to socialise for example. However most of the social/extra-curricular activities come from the learning provider. As apprentices we are able to join any of the hundreds of societies at the uni as well as any of the sports clubs, and can even run for an exec position. However it can be difficult at times fitting student-run activities around work hours.

Yes

It's a good company with a variety of opportunities in different areas that are opening up as the automotive industry is going through a period of rapid change. It also has a genuine interest in you doing well as it wants you to be their managers in the future as it aims to become a more technology-focussed company.

Just do your research really. If you go in knowing what the course entails, the differences between a degree apprenticeship and a traditional degree, and know a bit about the company too, they'll really appreciate that. Ultimately they're looking for people who align with the company values (which you can find online really easily).