Software Developer Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement here at Cognito due to the vast amount of experience which I have gained, and the amount of new people that I have been able to collaborate with on a day-to-day basis

Right from day one I felt like a valued member of the team - everyone is keen to work with you and share the knowledge around!

The level of support which I have been given has been excellent. My team lead was very welcoming right from the start and was always willing to solve any queries which I may have had. We hold monthly one-to-one sessions to talk about how I am getting on and if there are any issues - but there never has been any!

I can safely say that there is no such thing as "running out of things to do" here at Cognito - The Middleware team as a whole is constantly busy and there is always something to work on.

I was treated like a valued member of the team, and the amount of work and responsibility that I had been given truly reflected this - Almost right from the start I was given a work ticket to complete, with the level of expectation being that I will be able to complete the ticket to the same standard as any of the other developers. Also, even though I hit a brick wall (due to the amount of stuff that you needed to take on) I never felt out of place because the support of the team was there to help me whenever I had any queries. Eventually, I was able to pick up any ticket to complete with little to no assistance whatsoever! What I found excellent was that I was not put to work on something "on the side" so to speak - whatever you were working on was important to the company as a whole.

Choosing to do my placement year at Cognito has introduced me to a vast number of new skills and technologies to which I will be able to take with me so that when I graduate, I will already have a strong foothold to which I can kickstart my career as a software developer. I have learnt so much about the world of computing within business and this year in industry has taught me things which I probably would never have been taught if I were to not do a placement year.

It was a calm and relaxed working environment, with the occasional laugh and chatter between people in their respective teams. The office space which I was working in was completely open plan which I found more welcoming.

I did not have any problems from start to finish - Cognito have a lot of experience in taking on placement students, and this shows in the quality of the organisation

The team that I was on strongly believed in on-the-job training, which I definitely approve of. Whilst there were still plenty of diagrams for me to understand the architecture, it would not become completely clear to me until I actually studied the code base myself - there is always something new that you learn everyday to keep you on your toes! In terms of my personal development, I was allocated time everyday to look up/research technologies and the code base which is always helpful before starting a piece of work!

Very appealing! It would be awesome to come back to Cognito as a graduate developer

The social aspect between placement students and colleagues has been really good - everyone is really friendly.

I would say that prices were average, me and a fellow placement student was able to share a flat for ~£750 per month excluding utilities. Prices for social activities such as sport and the pub are what I would expect to pay anyway so nothing too shocking.

The nightlife in Newbury is great if you wanted to go to a pub, however there is a lack of clubs so if you wanted to do a bit of clubbing I would recommend elsewhere - Reading is easily accessible by train!

I was able to be part of the local town badminton club, and I was part of a Newbury and Thatcham Running social group which held various events for us keen runners. I also know that climbing and go-karting is also quite popular and some people partake in those activities too.