Software Developer Review

As a software developer I develop, test, and deploy code alongside other employees within the team. We have daily meetings to ensure everyone is on track and knows what they are doing. In my team, our manager has us all come in to the office once a week so we get networking experience etc... The rest of the week we are working from home.

I have learnt a lot of new skills and these have been greatly developed as time has progressed. Before joining Fujitsu I only had experience with Python; now I am a confident Java developer who has had exposure to Powershell, HTML, and JavaScript. My programming skills have developed greatly as I have been set on multiple tasks and projects.

The course I am on is the DTS degree apprenticeship course with Manchester Met University. The course itself is okay (I am only in the second year) as so far for me, the first year programming I had already covered in college so it was a year long recap; the business side of things, within the program, isn't to my liking personally as It isn't something that interests me but it is a topic that needs to be covered. Second Year has been much better as the topics we are covering are more advanced and challenge you further.

The Program is fairly well structured and the topics I do in university greatly help the work I do with Fujitsu and vice versa, however I feel like a few of the modules in first year could be explained a bit further as I had already done the content before and the questions threw me off slightly. I feel like the questions should be straight forward but increase the content difficulty for beginners, rather than doing what they did and having easy content with questions that are hard to understand what is actually being asked. They felt a bit like trick questions which I feel is going to put a lot of people off when the content isn't actually that hard.

I receive loads of support from Fujitsu. If I have work for university that is quite difficult I am encouraged to reach out and ask for help or spend an bit extra working time for university work. I have regular catch up meetings with my manager to just have a chat, talk about work, talk about life outside of work, and talk about how everything is and if I'm doing okay. Fujitsu take mental health and wellbeing very serious.

The university is fairly good with supporting you when you are stuck, some tutors are far easier to contact than others and some take a while to respond but all of them will get back to you eventually and they will all do their best to answer any queries you have.

The DTS course fits in with Fujitsu work perfectly especially for the role I am in - I code with Java at Fujitsu and the DTS course for software developers is mainly focused around Java so it is a perfect match. I have definitely put things I have learnt through University into practice at work and vice versa.

Fujitsu offers some extra curricular activities through the recreation club but I have found that it is best to ask around to find out about what people do after work etc... A lot of people in my department go to the gym with each other or go rock climbing. So most of the activities that take place are organised by the employees. (This is only what I have found to be the case)

Yes

Fujitsu is a great place to work, everyone is inviting and easy to talk to. Networking is super easy as the majority of people you talk to are more than happy to have a conversation with you, whether it's to resolve an issue or just to have a chat.

Be yourself. In the assessment center there was a lot of applicants that I would consider to be far more advanced than me in terms of programming knowledge and so I didn't think I was going to get an offer. I think Fujitsu are looking more for personality, passion, and in general how you come across so to be yourself is the best advice I can give you. Prior programming knowledge is beneficial but if you have none I would suggest to maybe do a few online courses in your free time - this shows your interest and dedication.