Technical Support Engineer Review

My placement at SAP was a very rewarding experience as I was given tremendous opportunities and responsibilities that allowed me to learn and develop myself professionally.

Everyone treated me like a peer and gave me all the support and guidance that I needed, especially at the start of the placement as it was my first time working in an office environment.

I have ongoing dialogue with my manager where we discuss what I've done and ways to improve going forward.

The work is not too time consuming but it really depends on the individual how much workload they can take on.

I was given tremendous responsibility as I was interacting with Customers on a daily basis and representing the company.

This was a really good first professional job as you learn from working on your job as well as the various professional training courses that you can do.

Since the office I worked in was a technical office as opposed to a general one, the culture was very relaxed. The work attire was very casual (think jeans and polo t shirts). The colleagues were very friendly, we even organize social outings outside of work hours regularly. The culture is very laid back, everyone works at their own pace. There are plenty of things to do if one needs a break from work such as ps4 and table football. There are even opportunities to play football during extended lunch breaks as well as going for walks or runs around the area.

Initially, they struggled a little since the team that I was posted to had not taken in a new employee for a while. As such, there was quite limited training material or a training plan. However, the seniors on the team very quickly got together and came up with a plan. After a month of working here, we hired more permanent employees and I was even given the opportunity to use my feedback to tailor the recruitment process for them. After getting over the initial month, it was pretty smooth sailing after that.

We have had loads of opportunities to attend training and development sessions. These were both product training and professional skills training. The company paid for me to attend 2 training courses on the product that I was working on as well as the certification exam for the product. On the professional skills front, we had training in the LEAN methodology, had several design thinking workshops which allowed us to practice our skills as well as a 3 day soft skills course. Not only did this help me broaden my horizons, it also allowed me to learn and practice skills that I will take away with me for the rest of my career.

It is a tricky situation with future employment prospects. It might be a bit challenging to come back to the exact role that I am in right now just because they have to have an opening at the right time (around the time I graduate) as well as they have to make a business case to sponsor my visa to stay in the country (this is more to do with the immigration rules rather than the company). However, since this is a global company, there might always be an opportunity to work for this company at some other location in the world and that is a very exciting prospect.

There are 50 placement students in total but only 3 of us were based in the location that I was at. The other placement students were organizing regular nights out as far as I know. However, I did not really join them just because I had to go out of my way to go out with them and I was not really interested. Having said that, all the other students were reasonably friendly and we got on well enough whenever there was an opportunity for us to meet either in a social or a professional setting.

We ended up living in Slough which is not the best place in the world to socialize. There was only 1 pub of note in the area and there were not many social activities around to meet new people etc. On a positive note, I got on really well with the flatmates and we were able to socialize well. Cost of living was extremely high in my opinion just because we were that close to London. Rent itself is very expensive and it because very cost prohibitive to do anything in my spare time.

There was no nightlife in the area. In any case, it wasn't something that we were quite interested in. We had plenty of other opportunities to socialize and there was tons to do. Apart from that, we kept ourselves quite busy at the office anyways. Therefore, there was no inclination whatsoever to explore the nightlife during the work week. During the weekend, we just tended to prefer quiet nights anyways. Not that it really mattered because there weren't any options open to us anyways.

Whenever we had an opportunity to do something sociable, we generally did. For example, we frequently play football together. We also sometimes go down to the sports bar after work to watch football games together. We also had several trips to places like the bowling alley and the go karting track. Apart from that, there are groups of people who go for a run at lunchtimes and there are other groups that workout together(p90x) etc. It helps that everyone is really friendly and easy to get along with.