Junior Software Developer Review

Had a great time working with the rest of the team on a variety of different projects, everyone was really welcoming and the range of work I got was both challenging and valuable. The social aspect of working here was excellent and everyone is warm and open to discussion on technical or personal matters and regular social events certainly liven up the group and help you familiarise with your peers in a more casual setting.

My presence was definitely noted and my thoughts were considered just as much as any of the more senior members of the development team. My time was definitely valued by the other members of the team, less so at the start when I was still training as expected, but as my skills built up my input on a project was valued the same as any of the senior members of the team and we'd routinely discuss technical insights with each other.

Whenever I found myself stuck with a task there was always at least 1 person I could turn to and ask for assistance at any point. Sometimes it wouldn't be so much of a case of being given the answer but more of an opportunity to bounce ideas off the other person and have them guide me down the right path of thinking which I felt helped me gain more knowledge in the long term and better assess similar situations in the future. In instances where my colleagues didn't know the answer they were always willing to investigate together with me and in many cases this allowed us both to learn something new by working together.

This depended a lot on the type and quantity of projects we were undertaking, at times I felt there was real competition for my time between 2-4 different project I was involved in, while at other times it was more of a concise working effort on just one project. Despite these slight variations from time to time I still felt there was always enough work for me to pick up or activities for me to get involved in if needed, and my schedule rarely became exceptionally busy. Due to my involvement in the placement recruitment process I felt I wouldn't have enough time to keep up with any significant development work, I expressed this to the project manager and my workload was adjusted to take this into account, which I very much appreciated.

I was effectively a full member of the team in all but name. As a placement I was given control over the recruitment of the next year's placements which was definitely the biggest responsibility I had to date and was a good experience to get involved in. At the start of my placement I had less in the way of responsibility, but towards the end I was operating projects almost completely independently of any senior developers and was able to arrange and design the work as I thought best, as well as when to conduct meetings with customers.

The social skills I developed from operating the phone system and conducting the placement recruitment alone will undoubtedly have a good impact on the way I interact with others for the rest of my life. Beyond that, the technical skills I have picked up working with Twilio, C#, Javascript/Typescript and Azure (all of which I was wholly unfamiliar with at the start of the placement) will be essential in my final year of study as they play directly into my final year project. Beyond education I have already started using these technologies in personal projects and will certainly use them going forwards in my career.

While there were times when the atmosphere was clearly more focused on the work and getting the projects completed in time I don't think the atmosphere ever became dull. On a standard day people would always be willing to chat and the office would be incredibly lively with both personal and professional/technical discussion throughout. Quite often people in the office would bake cakes or such and bring them in which always helped brighten people up and spark discussion, best part is they'd almost always get left pretty close to my desk.

Due to the fact that I was in the first range of placements to be inducted here I felt that the organisation at the start of the placement was a little slapdash, though it was definitely valuable and effective at teaching me the basics I needed to know, if a little unstructured. I brought this up when working through the placement recruitment process and together with the more senior members of the team helped to guide the training process to be better structured for any subsequent years of placements, I feel we were pretty successful in getting a good process established from now on.

The company invested as much in my personal development as any of the other members of the team, perhaps moreso. The company paid for 2 of the senior developers and all 3 placements to become fully certified in the use of the Twilio platform including Twilio Flex, this was conducted in London before the pandemic and travel was fully covered for the entire week. The company really sought to give us as much experience as possible throughout the course of the year by involving us in numerous projects of different types to get the breadth and depth of experience we wanted.

Due to the amount of time and money invested into the placements and the placement scheme, Zing like to employ placements where possible. During the initial lockdown at the beginning of this year, despite working from home for several months, I was offered a job back at Zing at the end of my university course. Zing is a quickly growing company and I think I definitely have room to grow my knowledge in my time with them after university for a long period of time.

Most of the placements stayed in houses together and we quite often had meetups and nights out together before the pandemic as well as watching films or going out to restaurants within our own household groups. There are a variety of social activities organised as part of the company including curry nights, christmas party etc. The rest of my colleagues would also often organise drinks and pizza at a restaurant near work, as well as the whole company taking part in "beer friday" where we'd take the last half an hour of the week to relax and have a beer or soft drink together and take part in a quiz or just relax and talk.

The main places that placements live is either Oxford or High Wycombe, I chose to live in Oxford along with many of the other placements so the cost of living and socialising was rather high, though I personally believe it was a nicer area to live in than High Wycombe. A lot of the social events are organised in High Wycombe as it is closer to the office and also cheaper in the pubs so that's not so bad, in the area where I lived there were a few good pubs and restaurants that were decently priced, though many places in the centre of Oxford were considerably more expensive, as expected.

I don't particularly go to clubs, however there are plenty of them dotted throughout central Oxford and a little further out so you won't be lacking for options. Similarly there are plenty of pubs all across Oxford, some of them with live music on some days and all within walking distance or a short bus ride away. Unfortunately due to the onset of the pandemic I didn't get much opportunity to explore the area any further.

As mentioned in the other sections there are a wide variety of social activities put on outside of working hours, some of which organised by the company and others by the employees themselves. In particular one group of colleagues would routinely go to a nearby climbing wall together each week. Outside of work entirely there are a wide variety of things to do in and around Oxford and you can often take part in some of the clubs or societies offered by the universities in the town, though again due to the pandemic I didn't get much chance to explore these.