Introduction

My time at Responsiv started a few months into my second year of university when I applied for a Junior Developer/Programmer role. My university held an open day where I had the opportunity to meet some of the management team.

The interview was relaxed, and I felt relatively at ease.

Richard and Ivo answered any questions I had about the company, and it became very apparent that Richard was very passionate about software engineering, which I thought was a great reflection of his company.

Starting Out at Responsiv

Before even starting my placement, I was introduced to my manager, Hisham, who reached out to introduce himself and assign me two IBM sales certificates to complete. These gave me a good foundation of industry knowledge and an understanding of business automation before I got properly stuck-in.

On my first day at work, I was introduced to a senior developer who had us start an internal project and another IBM certificate, this time for Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

The internal project had me working on JS, ACE, MQ and VI. I am thankful to Hisham for contacting me before I started because, even though the courses focused on the business side of ACE and MQ, it gave me enough of a block to stand on and understand what was wanted from me, like Telemetry and MQTT.

I was also able to shadow another co-worker who specialised in RPA. I was learning what needed to be done because I was one of the people that needed to take over the job once he was gone.

After three weeks of working with Responsiv, I was already given the opportunity to work with clients. I was handed over part of an ongoing project, and was told to help identify and help debug the code in the RPA. I spent about two days with our COO, Henry, who was very helpful and gave me pointers on how to deal with clients in this field.

The next week, I was assigned another client project, this time working with databases and how to test them. I was taught how to make tests and given a quick tutorial on Eclipse and Java and have been writing tests since then. I have found bugs that would have caused complications once released and have asked an abundance of questions, be it about the software, the language or the project. My questions have always been answered, and they have been very patient with me.

My questions have always been answered, and they have been patient with me

My colleagues are great in terms of keeping me in the loop and including me in meetings, which I didn’t think I was allowed to be in as a placement student. It’s nice to have an insight into the developers’ minds by throwing their ideas back and forth, seeing them challenge each other to get the best outcome. People at university would either accept what was said while muttering under their breath about how much better they could do things, or they would argue about why their idea was superior. It’s a nice change to see collaboration in this way.

Training and Opportunities

The company gives us the opportunity to earn IBM Certified Certificates, which we do on the side along with any projects they want us to finish. My co-workers were very helpful, giving me tips on how to take the exams and how I could prepare for them.

Aside from the certificates, I have also been able to learn languages I haven’t used in a while; acronyms; and projects. I have been able to pick up the acronyms by asking what they mean when there is a lull in conversation or after the meeting. As always, the people at Responsiv are very patient and friendly when I have questions to ask.

When I first started, I was terrified of asking questions, but after asking ten questions and getting detailed responses that I actually understood, I stopped over-thinking and asked the questions. Once I confirmed that they had a few minutes, of course.

I stopped over-thinking and asked the questions

Life at Responsiv

Moving for placement was one of the many things I was worried about. I was apprehensive that because it was a work environment, there wouldn’t be any socialising, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are social events like going golfing or go karting after work.

There is also a pub or pizza lunch at the end of every month. It’s a nice way to find out about my co-workers and talk about topics that aren’t work-related.

So Far and Going Forward

Currently, I am finishing off the learning process of writing tests on Eclipse for the version one release to the customer. Then in the next week, I have been told that I will start another project that covers security, web application firewalls, high availability, server administration, OIDC, LDAPs and the like.

Aside from projects, I will move forward to achieve my RPA certificate and work on getting a certificate for ACE and MQ.

I look forward to seeing how the rest of my time at Responsiv develops!