IP Mobile Developer Review

I have enjoyed my work placement because I gained a lot of real life experience such as technical and the social aspect of working in an office that I won't get from completing my university course. My work placement helped me understand how team working and communication can benefit an individual and the team in solving complex issues.

I feel that I am welcomed to the team when I first joined the company. Everyone are friendly and willing to help me when I am struggling to understand either how various systems work or just generally how the company works. The first week that I joined, my manager and others in the team welcomed me by inviting me to a pub lunch and make feel like an active member of the team.

I was given support initially by my manager to set up a Kanban board with a number of task to look at which will give me a range of experience in a number of areas of the system. When I am stuck on a given task, I will ask my manager for his opinion and he will point me to the right direction to approach it.

To begin with I was given a number of tasks to work on which has no deadline assigned to them, so I can work at my own pace to complete them. As I get more experienced with the system, I started to work on tasks in the sprint, which will have strict deadlines to complete it by and the work balance for me was quite good even during the busy or in the quiet period. Also there are always work for me to do when I ask for it.

To begin with I was given less responsibility in completing important tasks that the company will require. But as I get more experienced and understand a lot more about how our system works, I started to get given more responsibility to work on critical or important tasks that will have a strict deadline to meet and feel like I am an important member of the team.

The skills I developed in this work placement was phenomenal and this will definitely benefit me and assist me in completing my degree as well as enhancing my career prospects in the future. The training I was given was very useful as this helped me understand how Agile team is managed and the tools that is used was really useful in giving me a feel of the benefits to work in an agile software development team.

The general atmosphere of working in the office is a busy environment where everyone are working on a task and everybody share their knowledge whenever they can to benefit others. Everyone are happy to help and point you to right direction so that you can get on with your work. Occasionally, we have discussions on the latest technology or gadgets and everyone can have a different opinion on it which make working in the office seem less stressful.

The overall organisation of the work placement was excellent as everything prior to starting the placement was planned and organised. The business are well informed about new placement students and the training given from the very start was easy to understand and getting familiarise with the work environment was not as bad as I thought it would be, since everybody was friendly.

In terms of personal training and development, the company has provided a number of meetings to help me gain understanding of the tools used in the company, which will equip me with the skill I need in the future. In addition to those, I was also invited to a number of training sessions to understand XSLT, which is an area where I am not aware of and will benefit me in the future. From giving me more challenging and interesting tasks, I benefit from understanding it as well as completing it.

I was told that the company will normally offer the placement student a job when they finished the placement and since there are a number of employees in the company, who used to be a placement student back in a number of years. So I will say the future employment prospects with this company is very likely.

There are occasionally some social between us as placement students for a pub lunch and also with members of the team on a Friday, to have meals together and chat outside of work. Also the Christmas party was lots of fun with a nice meal and some quirks that a guy was doing in which I was not aware that he was a comedian until it became obvious.

The cost of living for me was cheap cause I am from the area I working in so the cost for me was just the 5-10 minute drive to work every day (Monday - Friday). In terms of socialising in the area, the cost is not too bad and also the office is located near some major supermarket so occasionally I can get lunch at a reasonable price from there if necessary and it is not too far away from town centre, if I want walk there.

Nightlife in the area is not too bad, there is a cinema and pubs to go to in the evening after work but compare to Reading, which is 20-25 mins away from here has far more to do at night since there are more activities and events happening nearby.

There are many opportunities to get involved in activities organised by various employees, the major one is probably the Annual Christmas Party in which everyone is invited to and really entertaining night in which the company pays for it. There is also Go Karting event organised for all those who are interested and occasionally there is pub lunch organised by members of the team either weekly or every 2 weeks.