Apprentice Software Developer Review

I'm an apprentice software developer in the communications platform team. Generally, I'm expected to pick up tickets, pair with more experienced programmers, take part in team meetings and work on apprenticeship coursework. Previously I had been building a health checker for our servers and I'm currently working on our template service.

I had already done some coding before starting this apprenticeship and have continued to develop those skills within this role. I've also picked up full stack development skills by building a health checker site and gained experience with the Spring framework. As well, I've completed an OCA exam and gained certification as a Java developer.

It's great! The people I work with are wonderful and there are several other apprentices in my company which has really helped with having a community. There's also a larger cohort of apprentices that are all employed at different companies which has been insanely beneficial. I enjoy the work I do, the people I work with and the company I work for.

It's pretty well organised. The larger group running the apprenticeship Manchester Digital started things off with a 4 week bootcamp that gave everyone a solid starting point and have had monthly bootcamps throughout to keep developing skills. There's a timeline of goals that we need to meet and we're given one day a week within the company to solely work on apprentice tasks. My team is incredibly helpful as we have people in it that have already been through the program and know what to expect.

Loads of support. My mentor and line manager very clearly want me to succeed and give me structure and support when I need it. It's really effective because they've had apprentices on their team before and my mentor actually went through the program himself. We also have a dedicated person in our company that handles all apprentices and is there if I need anything.

Manchester Digital is very good at supporting us as we go. We have monthly meetings with them where we chat about how things are going and set goals for the next month. As well the person in charge of the apprentices is very easy to reach out to when minor things come up during the month. Very supportive.

I think it helps. Our training is a mix between coding and business practices both of which come up in the company. I definitely know more about the industry practices through our bootcamps. Not everything gets put into practice because a lot of teams work differently but the broad strokes are generally there.

Our company has lots of these. It's a company full of computer nerds so of course everyone is into rock climbing. There's also hiking days, staff parties and events for individual floors. BookingGo is really into fostering a community so there's generally quite a lot going on.

Yes

They really want people to stick around so the company as a whole does quite a bit to try to make it a good place to work. The people are nice, there's lots going on and there's oodles of little perks that make coming in to work every day as painless as possible.

Be a good, qualified person and you should do fine. If you're going through my program make sure that you know more than just coding. Try and have some personal skills to bring to the table as the assessment covers both technical and soft skills. Keep your eyes on the next step while in the program and make sure you keep hitting your goals.