Software Engineer Review

Usually a Stand-Up meeting, to communicate today's priorities and tasks, and then addressing any issues people might be facing. Throughout the day, you work individually on your ticket work. You might also have some weekly meetings around the project, such as sprint planning or sprint retros, or backlog grooming,

The firm supports new joiners on developing skills, by the ticket work, and day to day work, and these are all tech focussing such as JS and Cloud. They also strongly support and pay for certain certifications such as AWS and Azure Cloud fundamentals to help support everyone in the day to day work.

The experience has been very enjoyable, and the support and inclusion of apprentices is great. You are treated like an experienced team member, so you feel involved in the team, even though we only work 3 days a week and are at uni 2 days a week. Everyone feels this way.

The programme's structure has improved over the years I have been here. It had to be changed during COVID-19, when I joined, and so initially it wasn't well organised, but now, and with a new leadership team, this has drastically improved, and is much better than it was before.

I receive a lot of support from my employer on both sides of the apprenticeship - my studies at university and my work with the firm. They understand how it can be sometimes difficult to balance both of these, but they take this into account and provide help wherever they can.

The university itself do support us, as they would any full time student, however, they often fail to consider that we are at university only 2 days a week, and often fail to accommodate our timings and availability any time outside of these 2 days. We often miss out on things full time students get to experience.

Whilst the degree itself is based around computer science, and lots of theory behind logic etc. I have not found that the knowledge gained purely from my training provider has helped at all with my work. If they had a more software-engineering tailored degree, this would have been more appropriate

Yes, whilst I am not personally involved with these, there are so many different 'communities' that you can join for free at work, ranging from lunch time walks, to cycling teams, to group fundraising events (where you get PTO for). The firm really encourages these, and you can even create your own.

Yes

The firm is extremely supportive in any situation you might find yourself in, and the internal team that you work for are also the same. They understand the difficulty to balance work, uni, and social life especially as we are young professionals (most straight out of school). I couldn't ask for more from them.

Make sure you consider the firm's values, know what these are, and how you yourself are already achieving and meeting these. The application process will always revolve around this. You don't necessarily need prior experience for a role, but make sure you demonstrate a willingness to learn new things.