Higher Level IT Apprentice Review

I am an developer at Atos and have been working on a large scale project requiring me to take part in agile practices and has given me exposure to many technologies.

I have gained many new skills in a wide range of technologies such as Scala, Java, Play Framework, JSP and Hibernate. I have also undergone an official Scala training course.

I enjoy my programmae very much and think it has given me an excellent entry point into the industry. I enjoy working with my project team and taking part in meetings etc.

I feel very valued at Atos, having excelled quite fast in the program I have had support from my team/management in moving me forward in the company. This has helped me progress even further and I feel very involved and valued on my project.

My programme was reasonable structured. It involved me traveling from north Scotland to Birmingham to complete training for the first 7 months along with assignments from our assessor that we saw every 3 months. Our assessor provided reasonable support and feedback and helped with deadlines. After the first 7 months I was moved onto project where I got hands on technical experience while still doing some work for our assessor (this ratio of work/study could have been structured better).

We are provided with a standard amount of support from our assessor having contact via email and face to face meetings for a few days every 3 months. These few days were very hepful and the assessors done there best to support us.

My manager was very supportive during the apprenticeship and ensured that any conflicts (such as deadlines being unreasonable) were resolved immediately. We also had minors problems with an assessor switch over (original one left) which caused a communication problem but this was improved upon soon after it was raised as well.

The starting salary for the apprenticeship was a reasonable amount, covering my personal expenses with ease. I think what Atos offered was probably one of the best apprentice wages I have seen around and would be perfect for people coming out of education.

For my personal case I did not actively try to take up many oppurtunites involving my company outside of work but I was aware of various activites involiving volounteering for charity.

Yes

I believe it is a brilliant entry point for for a developer career giving enterprise experience and training.

Be very vocal in the interview process as they look for outgoing and confident individuals and be sure to ask lots of questions. Do some research on the company prior.