Junior Software Engineer Review

Overall I found my enjoyment of the Placement to be somewhat mixed. The work itself wasn't too bad. Relatively standard, although the codebase itself was quite large and complex, which endentured a steep learning curve. There were also a few highlight projects that I was allowed to work on mostly solo throughout the year. These I thouroughly enjoyed, and brought a great sense of acomplishment when completed. And some resulted in a demo to R&D which I also suprisingly enjoyed ( even with some embarrassing bugs shown live ) However over the year I did have some core design differences with some key memebers of my team. Which I found incredibly frustrating. A good portion of my work at the start was also doing testing or fixing bugs, Which for me was quite monotonous.

This would vary greatly between collegues. Some were very appreaciative, and open to new ideas, or at least sypathetic to my concerns/things I thought should be changed. Others were extemely dismissive, and hard to reason with. This did result in some occasions when people wouldnt listen to me, or were dismissive when I said that something needed to be fixed, or how it could be fixed, or if something needed refactoring. Which is something I simply had to just work around over the course of the year.

Guidance was fair, but overall on the slightly minimal side. In terms of help given when asked for, I would rate this much higher. As people in general had no qualms about moving their chair around to have a look at what I was having an issue with, or sitting down with either a whiteboard or the code and taking me through questions about the archetecture for example. Overall I wouldnt say this negatively impacted my experience however, since it forces you to more quickly become acustomed to asking for help yourself, or investigating on your own - which is critical anyway.

I would say I was quite busy on a daily basis. Apart from time waiting for builds to finish etc. There was always work to do, ranging between working on your tickets during the sprint, fixing bugs, or testing other peoples changes. However I think there was a good balance, and the general atmosphere was quite relaxed, you were allowed to take breaks without having to ask, and as long as your work is completed, people wernt too concerned with you looking busy for the sake of it.

I would rate this above average, I think by a couple of months in I felt almost like a regular employee, and as I mentioned before, was given relatively important projects to do on my own. For me it was a good balance, as I also enjoy just working on a project without too much external distraction in regards to responsibilites. I also didn't have anyone below me to manage, but this is what I expected.

I would say this is one of the more positive notes. When I started I had pretty good java knowledge, some c++ knowledge, and a bit of python. By the end of this year I am very proficient in c++, I've learnt how to use android, I've learnt both Objective-C and swift whilst doing iOS work, and also I've become much more acustomed to build systems such as gradle and jenkins, Which I was previously very wary of. Apart from this Ive gained a solid understanding of agile processes, and improved a lot in regards to how to test things, how to communicate well with people etc.

The general atmosphere was quite relaxed and friendly. There were ample tea making facilities and a mini fridge with soft drinks, a couch and games consoles, and the general attitude was that as long as you completed the work you had been assigned, people wernt too concerned with making sure you were at your desk staring at the screen. This was one part I really appreciated, as I think sometimes I would fix things in my head while I was on a break.

In terms of HR and the general process for being accepted and inducted it was quite good.The company has a long history of taking on Placement students every year, and I had regular 1 to 1's with my manager to monitor how I was doing, as well as meetings with memebers of HR. However I did find that for some of the proprietary systems and set up procedures, there was lacking documentation, or the tools had too many issues to make the set up/learning process simple.

I think there was a reasonable amount of investment. For instance I was given access to Udemy courses, as well as an Agile workshop that happened halfway through the year, and also there was a regular innovation time which I used to learn about neural nets, something I had been curious about for a while. Other than that not much to note.

For me personally I would rather work somewhere very different. For one thing I am more intrested in tangential fields such as Robotics or data science. Secondly I know this is not the same for everyone, but I think I was hampered a lot by the lack of creative endevours, with the majority of my time spent bug fixing instead of creating, and this is something I think would not change if I decided to come back.

Not really. We would sometimes go to the pub for a lunch on special occasions such as when long time collegues left the company, or for example when the last Placement student left.

Very High, the flat I rented cost 750 a month, however as I understand this is much cheaper if you get a shared flat, which is what the other placement students did.

No idea

Not that I was aware of