Software Engineering Associate Review

Really enjoyed my year working for this company. The opportunities within the company are endless. I managed to work on projects across multiple industries which helped me understand where my degree can take me. My placement wasn't just all work, the company socials are amazing as well. There is a big drive within the company to ensure employees have a good work-life balance.

The people are what make Accenture special. There is no discrimination what so ever and they all make sure you have what you need to do your job. They knew my strengths and would always push me to utilise my skills but also they knew my weaknesses and would always work with me to improve. On my last day they all took time out of work to take me out for a cheeky nandos which made me feel really valued

Everyone I worked with understood that I was a student so they took time to explain everything which was really helpful. My manager and line manager were always available to give guidance and support. My line manager did his placement with Accenture so he always made sure he was available to support me

I had a good balance of busy and not so busy days. When the work ramps up, I would have a lot of work to do and would do a lot of overtime (that extra bit of money from overtime really came in handy when I finished my placement). On the other hand, I would have days when I almost had nothing to do but those are the days I really liked because I would always find something innovative to do which would benefit my team

The amount of responsibility assigned to me was probably just right for someone at intern level. I did not directly own any deliverable but any piece of work I did would go through a consultant/manager who directly owned the deliverable first for approval. It would be unrealistic for an intern to come in and expect to be responsible for big pieces of work

I am 100% certain that what I learnt during my placement, I would never have learnt in uni. The placement helped broaden my way of thinking which will help me during my final year of studies and after. The training courses I undertook during my placement year have been really useful in my work. The courses also helped add a bit more value to my CV as I managed to finish my placement with 3 certifications from reputable exam boards.

The atmosphere was a good balance of fun and serious. When people had to work, everyone would knuckle down and get a lot of work done. On the other hand, most of the time the atmosphere around the office would be really cheery. There would always be something wacky going on around the office and they try to make everyone feel at home by observing almost every holiday. Best memory was Thanksgiving in November 2015 when they turned the office into an American theme and had American food everywhere. So much fun

This is probably my only criticism of Accenture. How the company works internally in terms of assigning roles doesn't suit interns. The system doesn't make it easy for interns/placement students to be able to get the roles they really want. It is a work in progress and they have just kicked off a group with people at intern, graduate level to help them get the roles they want which is a step in the right direction

Accenture are really big on ensuring their employees are constantly improving themselves and to do this, they have a website where there are loads of online training employees can take up. The training courses cover loads of different areas of the business from management to clojure programming, the list is endless. It all depends on how much you want to learn really. Over and above the online courses, they also pay for external training courses for their employees. The courses usually come with the opportunity to gain a certification. To show they are really big on ensuring everyone has the opportunity to develop, if a course is out of town, they usually cover the expenses so you wont have an excuse not to attend

All the projects I worked on where out of town which meant the cost of living for me was near zero because the company pays for accommodation/travel/food. I stayed at home with family over the weekends so managed to save up some money before going back to uni. The social scene in my project areas was decent for a night out during the week

The company is really big on ensuring the employees have a good work-life balance so even if you are working out of town there are opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. On the projects I worked on, there several sports one could take up and also for those not into sports, they had Bollywood dancing, yoga, food club etc. There is also an opportunity for anyone to start their own activity after work and funding is usually available for such initiatives