Web Devloper Review

As a whole, the placement was consistently enjoyable. What I took away most would probably be the people I got to live and work with, who were all really easy to get on with. I would also gain a thorough understanding of what my university degree in industry and what I would need to improve or I could capitalise on. Working at ProspectSoft was truly satisfying and gave me the experience of responsibility/respect from delivering real-world work.

During my time at ProspectSoft I moved between a development team of 3 and a team of 5, as part of a larger DevOps department. In this regard I felt very much an equal of my other developers with the same level or responsibilities, resources, and visibility that they had. I also had access to all relevant meetings and was encouraged to share my thoughts and ideas. Additionally, I had the chance to assist other departments with technical/operational support which further highlighted the value I felt my impact had here.

Support and guidance was well integrated to the placement experience. From the start I was assigned a mentor to help with simpler, ‘off the cuff’ questions and for more difficult questions I could ask more senior staff members. As the attitude within development was very forward-thinking and centred around efficiency, there was a general atmosphere of discussion. Questioning of the best way to approach a solution or technology then seemed like second nature for everyone, not just the placements, so it was easy to fit in.

Workdays were always fully planned from the start of the dev teams sprint – a way of dividing and setting goals software development. These sprints were assigned to each team where you could request being assigned specific tasks or just work top-down on task items in order of priority. As a result, there was always something to test or move on to if you had finished an item of work. Likewise, if you were stuck there was always someone available to give advice for the work you were doing.

From the start of my placement I had access to all the same services and permissions as everyone else on my team, this highlighted a level of trust and immediately allowed me to perform important actions for customers, e.g. database operations. I was also responsible for delivering customer projects and solutions within time frames. As well as this I would also be given weeks where I had to be responsible for customer issues and general company operations – all of this showed to me how much trust and responsibility was put on placements.

My studies were mainly helped by the technical skills I developed during my placement. I learnt a lot about Web technologies and software design methodologies in industry and expanded knowledge of how to apply these to fit a required solution. This will be of particular use for university projects, knowing how to set out, plan, and judge the work requirements of a project, as well as the technical ability to then implement a planned project.

A lot of my colleagues had similar experiences to me and had also done placements, this meant the office felt very approachable and friendly. Furthermore, attitude towards work tended to be out of enthusiasm instead of authority. This allowed for a good, lighthearted atmosphere whilst still being driven fundamentally by the work we were doing. The fact I was a similar in age and mindset to my colleagues was also critical in preventing me from feeling like an outsider.

Overall, the placement felt very organised. This was mainly due to the company having had a long running placement scheme which was essential for hiring over half of the staff that worked there full time. We had ample training and preparation time with support throughout the placement – which meant I could always feel like I was contributing something and not treated as an afterthought. The work we did was always well planned, and our feedback was noted and improved through documentation/discussion for others or the next placements.

There was a set month for direct training/development, after this month we had a personal mentor for immediate help for further questions. This month was swapped between staff throughout all departments– giving a well-rounded explanation of all aspects of the company. Both the month of training and the mentor scheme gave a sense of importance and investment into placement students. I was also given access to external resources during the placement, and advice for future any future personal improvement.

Future employment is very appealing to me – mainly because of the atmosphere and people at ProspectSoft being so easy to get on with/work with. I also feel like I would have the opportunity to learn and impact more areas of the company. This is because there is a much wider codebase outside of the main projects I was working on this year. As I got to know people who I lived and worked with quite well, it would feel a lot less unknown working for an organisation I knew I would enjoy working with.

There were many opportunities within many different rings of the placement year. Techy people traditionally went for curry or pizza every couple of weeks, the company planned nights out and special occasions, and placements often got together. For instance, the house I was sharing often went out to Oxford during the evening and weekends for a variety of different activities. Company planned events would often involve lunches and dinners, giving time to get to know colleagues and their placement experiences.

Though the placement was in Stockenchurch, it was common that placement students would live on the outskirts of Oxford. This was more reasonable/affordable than the centre of Oxford and also allowed us to socialise by travelling into Oxford. On the whole this cost was fairly reasonable considering the area and allowed us to get the most out of living here. Living here meant we did have a commute time to the office of about 20-30 minutes, given Oxford could get quite busy this could sometimes be an issue.

Though some students lived in different places we were mainly living around Oxford. This meant the town centre was about a 10-15 minute bus journey away and gave access to a lot of varied activities within the town centre e.g. quirky bars, scrapyard golf and cinemas. There was also a downtown area closer to us which had a great selection of bars and restaurants – these were also quite a bit cheaper and more student friendly.

There were a lot of opportunities that were schemed at work which we were able to get involved with, this included generals sports and fitness activities with some slightly further afield activities such as golf and rock climbing. A lot of the opportunities that I was involved with would come from the other placements I was living with and a lot of the time would focus around the weird and wonderful events going on in Oxford.