Placement Software Engineer Review

I had a really fun and interesting year working for Lighthouse. It was really nice to take the skills and knowledge that I've acquired from my degree so far and apply them to actual work. Everyone at the company is friendly and happy to help and the whole office environment is really enjoyable. During my year working there I got to complete a whole variety of different tasks and it never felt like I was just doing the same task over and over, it really helped me learn a lot.

One of the things I wanted out of my placement was real working experience, I didn't want to be seen as just a placement student that was mainly working on side tasks and projects that don't really matter. Working at Lighthouse definitely gave me what I wanted, you're treated just like any other member of the team. They value your work and encourage your feedback and participating in meetings. All of my colleagues were friendly and happy to help and this made me feel valued.

There's daily meetings in your team each morning which gives you the opportunity to speak to you team lead if you're having an issues or need any help. Additionally, everyone in the team is super friendly and happy to help so if you ever need support you can just ask them for it. The company also has a mentor scheme where you will have a monthly 1-1 meeting with your mentor to discuss how your progress is going and set any goals you'd like to achieve, the mentor then helps you make progress towards these goals.

There's a stack of tasks that need doing and they're happy for you to pick up the tasks that you want to do. This means that if you ever finish all your tasks you can pick up some new ones of the board to keep you busy. There's a good variety of different tasks to complete as well so that helps mix things up and ensure you're not just doing the same thing all day every day.

As I mentioned above, even as a placement student you're treated the same as any member of the team. This means the same level of responsibility, you're working on the actual product and your code goes into live releases of it. During my time at Lighthouse I was given the responsibility of developing quite a few large new key features of the product and was also given a fair amount of responsibility when working on a demo that was going to be shown to potential new customers.

I got to learn several new languages this year that I hadn't worked on before, learning new languages to such a high level will certainly help for my final year of studying. You're largely trusted to get on with the work that you pick up so this helped develop my self-management and organisation skills. Additionally, due to the range of work you do I feel like it's helped improve my problem solving skills, something I'm sure will come in handy in my studies.

The general atmosphere in the office is great. Everyone is really chatty and friendly, and during the summer time there's a great outside area where you can hang out whilst you have lunch. There's even some football goals so in the summer as long as it's not too hot we'd play football on our lunch break. Whenever it's someone's birthday there's also cakes and a celebration with the whole office, this really contributes to the nice atmosphere.

I think the work placement was really well set up. The placement begins with a 9 week training program along with the other placements and graduates to help you learn the core skills you'll need. During training you also spend a couple of weeks in office working on a real project to put what you've learned into practice. Beyond the initial training period people are always happy to teach you anything extra if you have questions. Once you're working full time in office I think it's really well organised how the work is allocated so you can choose the tasks that suit you best.

As I mentioned above the program starts with a 9 week training program so right from the start rather than throwing you in the deep end the company invests a lot of time to make sure you're comfortable and well prepared for work. After training they also have the peer mentor scheme where you'll have a monthly 1 to 1 with your mentor. In these meetings you can mention any further development and training you'd like to focus on all and they'll help you achieve these goals. Finally, there's also learning lunches where people from all across the company will do presentations on aspects of the products that you might not be so familiar with so this helps with additional training.

Throughout my placement year here I've met some amazing colleagues who have been great to work with and it makes it really appealing to return! The company has taught me so much and working here is really enjoyable as I always feel like I'm learning something new so again that's another reason that future prospects within the company are appealing. Lots of the people at the company started off as placement students and returned afterwards and progressed within the company. Likewise I'll be returning after placement and am very much looking forward to it.

During the training period every other Thursday there's an event after work where the company hires a food van and sometimes does an extra event alongside for example there was a murder mystery night. The company goes to the nearby pub after work on every Friday as well. Sometimes people will go on nights out in the surrounding area as well. Additionally there's a really great work Christmas party and the company even pays for your hotel room.

I lived in Crawley which was about a 10 minute drive away from the office. Rent in this area wasn't through the roof expensive but it wasn't particularly cheap either. As Crawley is located between London and Brighton a lot of the social aspects charge similar prices to these places so again it's quite expensive. However, some parts of living there can be quite cheap, for example there's some really good gyms that have cheap membership costs so that was one benefit of living in that area.

Crawley itself didn't have the best nightlife, there's a few clubs and some pubs but overall it's not the best and the clubs can be quite expensive. However, it does have the benefit of being located in between London and Brighton so as long as you are willing to take a short train journey you can go to these places which have a really good nightlife. Unfortunately, nights out at London and Brighton can be rather expensive too.

There was a decent amount, as I mentioned in the question above about the social scene the company runs social events every other Thursday during training and go to the pub every Friday.