Technology Analyst/Software Engineer Review

My role was supporting a software engineering team, so day to day activities included things such as being part of the transformation team and hence changing and migrating items of our CI (continuous integration) pipeline in order to better optimize it; integrating a code analysis tool into our CI pipeline in order to improve code quality; obtaining data about Nomura's language and framework usage using the GitLab API in order to better understand our standing; tracking the progress of certain tasks using their respective API's and subsequently creating visual burndown charts in powerBi showing this task progression.

Yes definitely. I definitely learnt a LOT on the role, I came into the position pretty much not knowing how to do a single thing that I do today. The soft skills i came in with were also largely developed. Being on a team of 20 allowed me to understand first hand how a team interacts and is expected to work together. Skills learnt include: data science (python pandas + numpy), deployment of services, tech stack tools such as jenkins, teamcity, gitlab, sonarqube, jira. Skills developed include: communication, time management, task prioritization, software engineering.

Yes. The responsibility I was given definitely felt like it gradually grew in line with how capable and confident I was becoming. I started off doing a relatively monotonous yet necessary task for the first few months which allowed me to get a better understanding of our team dynamics and codebase. Shortly after I was given new tasks to do in alignment with my initial task and was given the opportunity to prioritize and complete tasks myself.

I was given a 'buddy' who was part of the core team from the start, this was a senior software developer who I felt comfortable asking for advice or help on any tasks. I then also worked very closely with my manager throughout the entire placement. Towards the end of the year we interacted less as I was more confident with completing tasks by myself but I still felt very supported. Apart from my manager and buddy I also received a lot of guidance and support from the rest of the team, I knew exactly who to go to for specific help and never felt blocked without a way out. This was a really great thing about my team! :)

As I was working remote the entire duration of my placement i feel like i missed a lot of company culture and atmosphere that i otherwise would have experienced. However, generally speaking the atmosphere was friendly and supportive. Company culture felt relatively like a conventional corporate culture, but once again this is probably because i experienced speaking to my team about a non-work item very rarely due to the circumstances. From general conversation it sounded like in-person working included a lot more socializing and events like whole team pub visits etc.

I definitely enjoyed my placement a lot! I most enjoyed learning as much as I did as I did not expect to learn so much on the job. I also really enjoyed the amount of responsibility I was given - i expected to do more monotonous, support tasks but in reality was given the opportunity to be much more of a contributing team member and was able to get involved in some very interesting discussions and calls.

Yes

For interview: be yourself and show what your genuine interests are. Be very open minded and expect to learn a lot on the role. No need to over prepare before the role because everything you need to know you will be taught! Also be very willing to speak to people, ask for help, communicate. We have a HUGE emphasis on communication in our team and it is VERY important that the second a team member hits a blocker they are able to communicate it and ask for help.