Software Engineer Review

My placement was fantastic. Everyone I met was friendly and welcoming, and always willing to share their knowledge and help. My line manager was able to find me something that fitted in perfectly with the direction I wanted to take my course in my final year, and my future career.

I felt as though my experience was respected in making decisions and suggestions to help improve processes of production. I was frequently told that I was doing great, and felt a part of the company status quo. I felt very welcome and accommodated from the very beginning of my placement.

My manager frequently stayed in touch to check what I was currently working on, and how everything was going. If at all I needed any help with anything, he always offered support or a contact for someone who could help. He was very pro active in finding me new work.

I always had something to do. There was very few days when I had nothing to do, except when transferring between projects. If I had nothing to do, my line manager or another colleague would always find something I could help with in order to further my experience and skills.

At first I was only responsible for the work I was doing, and making sure that was to standard and on time. After a couple of months, I became more responsible for some of the code I was working on, as well as taking on tasks with the hardware development.

The skills I learnt have significantly helped me with time management and deadlines, as well as furthering my understanding of key areas within computer science. These will help me next year with learning and understanding the course content, and developing a dissertation. The skills I developed here are for life.

The atmosphere was good, there was often someone making a good joke. There was times when I was left on my own (nature of the work I was doing), and felt like I could have done with some more interaction, but there was always someone around I could talk to.

The overall organisation was good, I received most things I needed in my induction week to be set up as an employee. I sometimes felt organisation was lacking however, especially when it came to sorting my security clearance and some of the documentation for things being out of date/non existent.

When I moved onto software development, I felt there was a lot of support from colleagues in helping me understand the software, especially as I hadn't done C before. They spent the time I needed helping my understanding of the code that was there, and allowing me to learn C.

Coming into the company, I had no idea if I wanted to work here after University, but having been here a year, I would love the opportunity to work here again. The company is very big on developing an employees personal skills and career path to cater to their needs.

In my induction week, all the students were together. I was put in with the graduates as I was the only placement student. We had a day at a team building exercise outdoor centre which was fantastic, and helped with meeting new people that I frequently spoke to whilst here.

The canteen in the company is relatively expensive, so I brought my own lunch in. The local shops are inexpensive, and there is plenty of pubs and bars in the area with a varying price range.

There isn't many clubs in Guildford, but there is quite a few good local pubs that are always busy on a Friday/Saturday night. We went on several social events during my time here, often celebrating a successful project delivery or deadline.

There was a football club that the company ran every Wednesday, and often social events arranged for successful deadlines of big projects. There was also a local sports centre that the company provided a discount for, and a lot of people were involved with rock climbing and cycling groups.