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Glad I came here for my Apprenticeship

Apprentice Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Booking.com for 2 years
June 12, 2018
Manchester, England
5.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Plenty of learning time is given to us. We have a weekly apprentice bay for sharing knowledge and learning together, and I also spend some time in learning sessions with my product group.

My team is really nice and supportive of me in both my work and my apprenticeship. I really feel like I'm part of the team.

Mentor and buddy system: the buddy helps with any problems I have with day-to-day work, and the mentor helps with broader things like ensuring I'm satisfied with how I'm progressing, along with chasing any issues I'm having or questions I have within the company or within the apprenticeship scheme.

Free cereal for breakfast.

I feel like I can say where I think things could be better to anyone. My opinion feels important and valued.

I'm able to work remotely from home when I need to, which is really good as I commute into Manchester.

Cons

Mostly just a few really picky things:

  • Can be a bit "business as usual." Newer technologies have been more reserved for hackathons, etc., rather than day-to-day work, as we are held back by legacy systems. There is work being done in this area, so it's not all bad. I get to learn about why good practices are good practices, and also to help my team move towards newer systems, which is exciting.

  • Canteen food quality in The Beach has been going downhill for a while. When I started, it was really good, but for a while, I've preferred to go out for lunch. The free fruit can be a bit hit and miss (but then, free fruit is better than no fruit). Cake options are good, though.

  • Some of the meeting rooms don't make much sense, and it can be hard to book the meeting rooms that are useful. Also, the meeting room software keeps crashing, so you can't lock in your meeting room, and then people turn up because they've booked the meeting room for the second hour of your two-hour meeting that you couldn't confirm because the software crashed. This happens a lot.

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