Product & UX Designer Review

Focusrite Novation was an enjoyable placement year which taught me many new skills. I was able to learn skills which related to my course but also learnt new things which my course wouldn't have taught me. I was very lucky that Focusrite was a very welcoming company from day 1, and they made an effort both professionally and socially to go above and beyond.

Yes, I felt very valued by my colleagues. I was not treated as a placement student but instead, I felt a true part of the team where they valued my opinion and respected me as a professional. I felt that they really did value me as they would frequently trust me to be as independent as possible on a large variety of projects.

I had a weekly meeting with my manager to ensure I was on track with my work. In general, I was also able to ask questions and advice easily throughout the year both from my managers and other people in my own team as well as other teams in the company. There were times however that due to the time difference of one of my managers being in another country it was difficult to get some specific guidance that others within my own office could not provide. However even with this help being delayed at times, I would almost always get the help.

I was always quite busy, but in a good way where I was doing a useful task which were relevant to my course. It meant that I was able to learn a lot in just a short amount of time. I believe the work load I had as a placement student was fair and I never felt overly stressed about the deadlines set for me.

I was treated like a real part of the team and was given jobs each day that were important to the team. It was good to have this much responsibility as it allowed me to really see what product design jobs in the 'real' world really entailed. Although it was a lot of responsibility I was never under pressure and would always have support to reach goals.

I hope that the skills I learnt will help me after I graduate, and I believe that even though at times they were not exactly what I want to do as a future career they were still very useful things to learn and they still related to aspects of my degree. I think it depends on the person as my degree is very broad so it depends on what you want to focus in on after.

Everyone was lovely. It's a really friendly set of people that work here. They emphasise the 'family' feel, and it really does show that they care about you. Everyone is always happy to have a chat. Couldn't have asked for kinder people who were more welcoming. There is a strong effort to include everyone in group discussion both in terms of work and socially.

The role I had was still fairly new when I joined so there were still parts of it which wasn't completely set in stone... but in a way, this wasn't a bad thing as it meant the role could be adjusted to what I wanted to gain from the year.

They trained me on programmes I had never used internally which was useful. I did learn a lot of new things especially for one of the programmes Id never used before. However, I would have liked to possibly have a few full intensive training days on some specific programmes from exterior companies. I feel this could have ensured I was completely up to speed with professional standard programmes and possible would have meant I would have performed some tasks quicker.

For me personally, I would like to try working at other companies to see what my role elsewhere would be like as I don't want to get stuck in the same place forever. I think it would be interesting to see how other places do it, especially as here it was a fairly new role so I would like to see what it's like to work somewhere where the role is more developed. However saying that, if I did get offered a job here I absolutely wouldn't turn it down as it really is a great company to work for.

Yes, there was. I had little in common with the other placement students in the other departments but despite this, we all got on really well. It was a really nice feeling to know that at lunchtimes (as well as any time really!) I would always be welcome to spend time with those in my department as well as others from other departments.

It was quite high unfortunately as it was quite close to London. I did manage to commute though from further away which saved me some money. Even though I did this I was still able to socialise with people after work easily. The wage was fair for a placement student and we were provided free lunch everyday so it was ok.

Not great... There are basically no nightclubs in high Wycombe however London is pretty close so if you really wanted that kind of night then it wasn't too difficult to find. There were however quite a few bars in the centre and also some breweries nearby which people often went to after work together.

Yeah, there were. Everyone was a very friendly bunch so were more than happy to socialise outside of working hours. Part of this I think is that there are quite a lot of young people working here. But also because everyone is into a variety of music there is always music events to go to. There was also some people who went running together at lunch and that kind of thing.