At the start of the year, a friend showed me a job posting for a NetOps/SecOps degree apprenticeship at a company called EPIX Systems. I was immediately interested in how the company presented itself, boasting a friendly and welcoming environment, while simultaneously promising experience in application development, Linux, and cyber security, which I was most interested in. To be honest, I thought it sounded too good to be true.
That was until my first day in early September, where I was greeted warmly by everyone in the office, before being invited to join everyone for the daily meeting. The meeting offered me a great opportunity to get to know everyone, and learn about all of the interesting things they do day to day.
On subsequent days, the meetings allowed me to discuss the different things I have been working on, issues I have been encountering, and how they were resolved, while also getting advice from the others when needed.
After that, I was given a Welcome Pack that had been put together by the business apprentice, Ella, to help ease me into work. The pack provided everything I needed to get to grips with how the company runs, and introduced me to Jira and Slack which are used manage work and communicate with the team.
I was then thrown straight into both the web and mobile applications, and given small coding tasks to help acquaint me with them, so that I have a solid foundation to work with when I move on to real issues and features on the main software.
I think the highlight of my time so far has been the other apprentices, who have been great to talk to about what I can expect in uni and how I can best spend my time, as well as giving me lots of help when I was completely stuck on a particular task (after first making sure I really was completely stuck!).
The fact that I know I’m now working in the field I’ve wanted to go into for years, while also working towards a degree, fills me with so much motivation to do well and get as much out of the experience as I possibly can. With uni starting next week, and getting added to the sprints later this week, I’m really excited for the next four years, the people I will meet, and the lifelong skills that I will learn!
