Developer Placement Review

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at Egress, everyone is very welcoming and helpful, especially my team who showed me the ropes and taught me a lot throughout the year, as well as a few good laughs along the way, not to mention the great company events organised yearly, which are amazing fun.

To my surprise, I received a laptop on my very first day and with the help of my colleagues I had it all set up and ready to go before the end of the day. Within my first week I was doing meaningful work, learning as I go and before long I felt like an integral part of the team, able to muck in on most tasks.

Everyone was incredibly helpful throughout my placement, not just my team, everyone was happy to help whenever/wherever they could. There’s such a varied set of skills in the office(s) and there’s always someone who’s able to help and on the off chance there isn’t, Egress provide a number of online resources which are very useful.

For the most part I was comfortably busy, able to get on with work productively without running out of things to do, however there are occasionally spikes in workload around deadlines which make for an interesting and rewarding few weeks and on the flipside, there has on occasion been quiet days which is the perfect time to utilise the online learning tools Egress provide.

As the year progressed and I learnt more I was given more and more responsibilities to the extent that I had implemented a few key parts of the system and continued to managed them, to my recollection there weren’t many tasks I wasn’t permitted/able to complete with a little help/supervision.

I’ve learned so much from working at Egress, not just course related but business/project related also, my general work ethic/approach to planning and procedure has improved greatly, all invaluable to my course and future employment. As for course related skills, I’ve learnt a vast amount of technical skills many of which I can already foresee helping in my final year project.

The atmosphere varies a large amount based on who’s in and the schedule, but it tends to be comfortably quiet with an air of productivity, which for me at least was a nice environment to work in, however there were some very interesting discussions cropping up every now and then, work related and otherwise.

The placement didn't have a specific structure, instead it was treated like a regular job, which actually made me feel much more valued, there was help available whenever I needed it from my colleagues and the modern systems in place made it easy to find any information I needed. So all in all a very well organised company, but not just for placement students, for all new employees.

There's a few different resources that Egress provide, but the main source of training was actually my colleagues teaching me on the job, I’d attempt a task and if I got stuck at any point they’d be there to answer any questions I’d have, which I found to be very productive and I’ve learnt a lot through this alone.

If I get offered a job at the end of my placement I'd love to take it, I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here and would happily come back after my final year of university.

There wasn't a lot of placement student specific events, but there were quite a few events company/office wide.

Accommodation is pretty cheap, food is the same, and bars/pubs aren't badly priced either since a lot of places are accommodating for the large student population. One thing to bare in mind, Sheffield centre doesn't have a lot in the way of large supermarkets, plenty as you leave the centre, but if you decide to move to the centre there are only locals/express/metro.

The nightlife in Sheffield is very good (has a large student population), there's an amazing Bierkeller and other great clubs, not to mention three Wetherspoons in the centre. There's lots of variety in Sheffield including a few Rock bars, a vast range of restaurants/takeaways, ice cream parlors and much more.

When I started at Egress the office was very new and the activities were lacking slightly other than the occasional pub trip/work organised events, but recently they've picked up a lot and are good fun. The city itself (Sheffield) has many opportunities, none that I've exploited but I know there's a lot that goes on in the centre.