Associate Software Engineer Review

I found the placement extremely enjoyable. The work I did was interesting, useful, and meaningful to both me and the business. Some moments during the year were hard and occasionally demotivating when I faced a particularly difficult challenge but this did not detract from the whole experience, instead preparing me more for tasks and jobs in the future.

All teams I worked with during my placement year valued me very highly. From the trainers and talent fulfilment specialists at the beginning of the year, to my development team while client-side, I was always supported, motivated, and trusted in all the work I did and roles I was responsible for.

The majority of support during my time with Accenture came from the development team, specifically my peers and colleagues. My manager did his best to support me but as I joined both a busy project and at a particularly busy phase of the programme, he did not have the time to focus on me individually all the time.

For the most part, I was very busy (in a positive way) with a range of tasks, from developing, to bug testing/fixing, to business analysis, to project management meetings. The only time I felt like I did not have enough work was at the end of my first project when I had completed my roll-off tasks and knowledge transfer a couple of days early.

I was given a lot of responsibility over the course of my placement. While I started out with almost none during my training phase, towards the end of my first project I was delivering detailed progress reports to senior management on a daily basis and was responsible for the resolution of bugs found by the testing team.

Every skill I learnt during my time at Accenture will undoubtedly be invaluable for the rest of my career. Skills such as working in a professional developer environment, being in a client-facing role, being accountable to managers are all skills that cannot be taught at university and as such, are very useful for life.

Due to the busy-ness of the project and the fact that we were based at the client’s office, there was always a cap on how much ‘fun’ the team I was on could have. Having said that, there was always lots of camaraderie and a constant level of banter between colleagues, regardless of project phase.

The work placement programme at Accenture is well organised, for the most part, and ensured everyone had meaningful work to do during the year. Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of students’ and talent fulfilments’ hands, there were times when there were not many roles for people, and as such some students had less work to do over the year than others.

Accenture invested a significant amount of resources into me, from the mandatory training phase all industrial placement students undertook, to training on the job when I was placed on a project, to post-project opportunities to personally develop our skills in a variety of topics and subjects at our own preference.

Having experienced a year of work in Accenture, I feel as if I have a good understanding of what day-to-day life in the company is and as such, employment with Accenture is certainly appealing particularly with the level of compensation they afford to placement students who return to work with them after university.

For those working in London near the main office of Accenture, there was a lively social scene with students frequently meeting up after work. Some students were based outside London and as such, were more limited in how much socialising they could do. Nevertheless, Accenture pride themselves on team events throughout the year that anyone can attend.

As I worked in Warwick for the majority of my time with Accenture, the nightlife was essentially non-existent. For some this is not a problem as the working hours are often long enough to feel too tired to go out much on a weekday but for others this could certainly be a negative point when considering a placement.

Accenture ensured there was ample opportunity to get involved with activities outside of work. These included social events for teams, business units, and placement students, sports clubs for employees who shared a common hobby, and dedicated charity days for employees to give back to the community, if they wanted to.