Software Development/Data Science Placement Review

I enjoyed the placement quite a lot, the work environment was helpful and friendly, which is in my opinion the main condition for a great placement year. I also enjoyed the freedom of opportunities you can choose, during this year I have tried a lot of different areas, from basic software testing to data science pipelines in Spark. Such opportunities are great for anyone who hasn't yet differentiate his goals and main interests in the field related to IT.

Egress is a great company in this sense. Placement students here viewed as fully capable members. Of course, you are given extra training at first, however, given the interest, a student can start working on real company projects straight away. The team I was in, as well as all others I saw, has been very communicative and friendly, we had regular meetings during which everyone was given the right to speak out, tell his ideas or ask a question.

There were some organisational problems first few weeks, in terms of concrete action plan. That is because the team I was taking the placement in, was quite new and relatively small. Hovewer during the year we have solved these issues, and, whenever I had any concerns, either an HR or my line manager were very quick to offer an advice or some solution. In terms of technical support, I didnt encountered any issues and always helped when needed.

I was quite busy during working hours, due to the number of responsibilities I have taken on myself. But I enjoyed this routine quite a lot. It helped me enormously, during these busy I have learned tones of new things, that I would never get familiar with otherwise. The company doesn't insist on excessive hard-working from its employees, instead encourage them to take regular holidays. All the overwork I have encountered during the placement have all been purely voluntary, which says quite a lot.

During my placement, I have been given tones of responsibility, whenever I wanted it. I could propose my own projects or join other work. Of course, everything should still be within the context of work and to its beneficence. However, you always could choose your own tools to get there. Whenever you want to use your own programming language or new software that you feel comfortable with or feel like it will do a better job, you most probably can use it.

First of all, given all the learning and practical instruments and resources, I have received, I feel much more confident returning to studies. I have definitely identified and chosen the direction I want to build my career in, due to having some experience in many real work examples related to many different fields, evaluating its disadvantages and advantages for my personal taste. I'm sure, this placement year will help and encourage me to reach higher in my studies and beyond.

The atmosphere in Egress is very friendly and kind. The office itself is very open, there are no private cabinets, except meeting offices, therefore everyone is constantly within a contact, in case you need help or just for a quick talk. Office also has a kitchen area where you can prepare your meal, eat your free breakfast, or play some pool during lunch break hours. It also has a coffee machine where you can prepare a hot drink whenever you feel like it.

I had an access to many training online resources such as O'Reilley books and DataCamp subscriptions. Our team (data science) also has a special sandbox subscription for Microsoft Azure where you can try whatever you want, within the monthly budget. We are also given some monthly mandatory courses on everyday security tips. There are regular company-wide meetings where people can share their knowledge with others. I feel like I was given a great range of opportunities for personal training and development.

I was living in the Sheffield centre, it is a pretty medium area in terms of cost of living and socialising. The salary from my placement was quite enough for both. I was living in the studio flat for roughly 550 pounds per month, including all utility bills and wifi. Egress also offered a gym discount and regular party events with free drink/food that decreased the cost of socialising further. I feel pretty satisified with the quality of these services as well.

Due to Sheffield having two big universities in close proximity (Sheffield Hallam University and just Sheffield University) there are lots of activities you can get involved in outside work hours, even if you are not a student of these particular universities. from sport to educational I have seen almost every possible acitivity offers available in online and offline services/apps. In addition, this city has a cinema, theatre, and few museums where you can go in your free time