Software Developer Placement Review

I enjoyed this placement fully as it aligned with my personal passions and interests and the company ethos was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. The company was flexible about how I chose to work and supported my interests and helped me learn what I wanted to learn.

I'm involved in the team quite a lot for a placement student. I work on actual products that are used by many users and I feel like the work I do is helping the team a lot and they value me for that. I also get along very well with all of my team.

My mentor and my manager taught me so much during my placement. Sometimes I would prefer to try and figure out a solution myself and other times I would enjoy working with my supervisors to solve a problem. It was just my supervisor which helped me too, many members of my team were also happy to help.

I never had absolutely nothing to do. I always had at least one thing I could be doing and the control was in my hands when it came to what I chose to do next or when I chose to do tasks which meant that it was a very good balance and I could manage my time and tasks to keep things refreshing.

I was given as much responsibility as I wanted. I had the choice to work on non critical projects or I could work on projects which have a roadmaps and deadlines. I wasn't pressured into working on anything particular and felt like I had the flexibility to change around how I pleased.

The skills I have learnt here are critical to the industry I'm looking at working in, in the future. I'm so glad that I chose this company and I'm able to speak to extremely talented developers on a day to day basis and have my code reviewed by them too.

Everyone here is really friendly and all share similar passions and so it's very easy to get along with most people. Sometimes we may have a bad sprint and people may feel slightly unmotivated but that'll pass pretty quickly and we'll be back on track and enjoying the work we do.

Considering I was the first ever software development placement student, I thought the placement was put together very well. I was never left with nothing to do and I got out of it exactly what I wanted which was to experience working for the company like a normal employee. Not a placement student.

The company will give me time to learn new technologies and quite often take time out to run education days and learning days. We also get 5 personal development days which mean that the company pays for us to work 5 days where we can choose to learn anything we want as long as it benefits the company in some way.

I've still not finished my placement just yet so I don't know how that's looking. A few other placement students have been offered jobs afterwards and have also been hired part time during their last year of university.

The group of placement students often go out for drinks, BBQs and play bowling and there is usually some form of social event when someone leaves or joins the software team too which is fun.

High Wycombe isn't too expensive in terms of living cost. It can be a bit expensive to get into London (usually around £14 return with a railcard) so if you enjoy going into london be prepared pay up. Otherwise, rent is pretty average for the area and travel within the area is also pretty average.

There are a few pubs and a spoons that we enjoy going to, there aren't very many night clubs and I haven't been to the ones which exist.

There were often a lots of oppurtunities to get involved with outside of work such as fun runs, charity events, pop-up shops as well as audio developer meet ups. There are also sports such as a football team, running club, skate club and many more to get involved with here.