Assistant solutions developer Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my work placement and I can easily admit that working here was one of the best decisions I have taken as an undergraduate.

Placement students are very important to the company. I felt I was part of the system and most of the time I was treated in the same way as any other full-time employee.

Everybody is friendly and willing to help at any given time. I often found myself asking many questions and the amount of support I have to on a daily basis has been incredible.

I have never run out of things to do, and I could say most of the days were busy, but I never really felt pressured. There were deadlines to be met and time-critical customer projects, but working in an agile environment helped us distribute the work uniformly and gave an amount of flexibility.

As previously stated, as a placement student, I never really felt different from the other employees. Of course, there is a learning curve and my lack of experience was visible, but my tasks were just as important as the ones of my colleagues. One of the things I am most happy about is that instead of being given my own separate work, I was actually out there doing what everyone else was doing.

I feel that everything I learned this year will play a crucial role in my future career. Developing really valuable technical skills should go without saying, but I am grateful that I could be part of a community where every single person had something to offer, no matter their background, hierarchy level or experience.

In short, the atmosphere was professional yet relaxed. People I interacted with most of the time were very friendly and open. Looking back at the time in my department, work was very important, but at the same time, humour was always welcome, and I do believe keeping a balanced atmosphere helped a lot with our productivity.

The entire placement programme was unsurprisingly well organised, as it plays an important role in the company development. There was not much formal feedback prepared for placement students in my department along the way, however, I found it easy to talk openly with everybody, and I could also get a sense of my progression from regular review meetings.

I have taken part in a month-long training period at the beginning of the placement year that included both a technical and a business overview. More business-related sessions have taken place throughout the year and, for a few months, short weekly after-work sessions were held on more technical topics like networks and infrastructure.

More than half of the current staff consists of returning placement students, and the company is constantly growing, making it a great place to work.

Yes, everyone was sociable both in and outside the office. Regular events like departmental nights out and relaxing end of the week activities in the office played an important role too.

Places like Oxford are far from being considered inexpensive, and it very much depends on many factors (number of people living together, spending habits etc).

The cities where most of the employees live can be found pleasant in one way or another by any type of person, and the Nightlife was no exception.

There was a fair number of activities outside of work. Most of them were either social events, sport activities or occasional short training sessions.