Guardium Technical Support Engineer Review

Although at times I found my role challenging, overall I did really enjoy it. The workload has been quite heavy and I have felt stressed at point, but I was able to deal with it and I think I got a lot out of it. As a placement student I felt well supported, and was given the opportunity to learn new skills through giveback and education.

Very much so. I was made to feel like an important member of the team. My thoughts and questions were always taken seriously and I never felt patronized. The members of my team seemed to genuinely want me to develop my skills during the placement year and to get as much as possible from the experience.

Every IBM placement student has two managers- a task manager who leads you on your day-to-day role, and an EPM (Early Professionals Manager) who is there for any other guidance. My EPM was happy to help me with anything outside the domain of my task manager- giveback opportunities, graduate roles, personal issues etc. Between these two managers I felt very supported.

I was kept fairly busy in my role. There was one other placement student doing the exact same role as I did. We did slightly longer days as standard than many other interns (9am – 5.30pm). Most of the time was spent investigating issues and responding to customers. We had to fairly regularly check to see if new updates had come into the system from customers (to forward them onto the correct engineer) and delegate new issues between members of our team. Any time that was left could be spent learning / creating new educational content for customers. I did not find that I ever had nothing to do in this role.

I was given considerably more responsibility than I thought I would be when applying for the placement. When starting the placement, I had a lot to learn to be able to deal with my role. I was expected to solve customer issues just like any of the much more experienced engineers (although, obviously, many of the issues I dealt with were simpler than theirs).

I feel that I have learned a great deal from my placement year at IBM. There is a huge amount of online resources that I was able make use of to expand my knowledge of topics relevant to my degree. In my role I improved skills such as Linux and SQL, which I think are going to be immensely useful for the remainder of my degree course. I also learned skills such as Web Development and different programming languages through the giveback I did, which I am going to make use of in my final year project. During my placement year I have increased in confidence and so I feel more comfortable when general communicating and giving presentations.

The Bedfont office is a lot smaller than Southbank, but, unlike Southbank, it never felt busy or bustling. The offices was always very quiet, and every day it seemed like nearly every desk was empty (though Tuesdays and Thursdays were the busiest days). The section in which my team worked tended to be more active and have a better atmosphere, with everyone being very friendly.

The placement was organized, and very structured. Everybody applying to the placement scheme does so in the same way (Online application -> online tests -> Assessment Centre -> Business interview -> Final Interview). You have a 3, 6, and 12 month presentation to your EPM to assess your progress through the placement year.

There is a large amount of training material from IBM available online during the placement. I was given a large amount of training for my role. I also had the opportunity to take some Certification exams for free.

There is the opportunity to apply for a graduate role at the end of the placement year. If you have done well in your placement and have a good application you can go straight through to the Business Interview stage. There now seems to be considerably less graduate roles than in previous years though, and certainly you are not guaranteed a graduate role after your placement year.

As the Bedfont office is much smaller than Southbank, there were fewer Placement Students based there (less than 20). As a result, the students got to know each other quite well, and regularly socialised outside of work. Most of the students also participated in the Interns Blog, and organised events together for that.

I decided to live within walking distance of the Bedfont office, and found a spare room to rent online. I paid £120/w on rent, including all bills, which seems to have been slightly less than average for the area. Although there are some things to do in Feltham, like a cinema and bowling alley, most people decided to not socialise there, and instead travelled to Central London or nicer areas like Richmond.

There isn't any nightlife really in Feltham, but you can get into central London fairly easily. In Feltham there is a tube station (Hatton Cross on the Piccadilly line (which runs all of Friday and Saturday night) ) and Feltham Train Station which has regular trains to Waterloo.

There are plenty of different opportunities that are available- giveback, sports, working at Wimbledon