Introduction

As an undergraduate who has never worked in a professional IT environment before, my first month at Responsiv gave me a great understanding in what to expect from being a software developer. It has also largely grown my confidence in doing so. Within the first month, I’ve already learnt an immeasurable amount of valuable information regarding the IT industry and feel very lucky for being a part of Responsiv.

Starting Out at Responsiv

Before starting, I was pretty nervous and overwhelmed as I had no prior experience working in this field. However, on my first day I was very much welcomed by the friendly team, which quickly boosted my confidence and abstracted all my fears away.

I was introduced to my mentor who has years and years of astonishing experience in software development. He gave me a clear, comprehensive, literacy of what my responsibilities involved. This list included, but was not limited to, reading business requirements and identifying any problems; researching design solutions for such problems; testing and meeting high levels of quality assurance; and many more.

In the first few days, we familiarised ourselves with the tech stack Responsiv utilises, which were things like navigating within the Linux shell, bash scripting, node.js, java etc. as well as collaborative tools such as git and Jira. Some of these were completely new to me and my mentor made it really understandable and relatable for me, hence why I picked up many of these skills fairly quickly. It is also worth mentioning that everyone in Responsiv was also very approachable when I faced any sort of problem, which made my start at Responsiv very comfortable.

Everyone in Responsiv was very approachable when I faced any sort of problem

All of this, obviously, didn’t just magically flow through, where I grasped everything in one go. It was a challenging start. There was so much to take in, but I was expecting such a challenge. Nevertheless, the team at Responsiv was very friendly and answered many of my questions, some of which they had answered again and again. They reassured me multiple times. Occasionally I was checked upon to see if everything was going well, which made me feel confident that the way I was leading was right and I wasn’t getting lost in my work.

Training and Opportunities

Since joining, it has been really visible to me that Responsiv cared about the growth of its staff. Responsiv takes high reason for their staff to expertise in new and reliable technologies by enrolling them in courses so they can achieve professional certifications throughout their time in Responsiv. These courses on industry-leading tools benefit individuals by making them more knowledgeable on these products, thus improving the company’s skillsets.

Responsiv care about the growth of its staff

I have experienced this first hand as my manager enrolled me in a course on IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Through this, I achieved my first professional certificate.

The learning at Responsiv is continuous and I’ve now moved on to increase my skill set with another course. Day by day I’ve noticed these courses gave me a broad range of instruments that make me feel really secure in the way I view and solve problems.

Apart from these courses, before contributing to any project, my manager and mentor assures me that I’m fully equipped for tackling my tasks. I receive an introduction in the tools to use, a set of guidance to aim towards, and their personal preferences backed by their previous experiences in software development. Even more, I was invited to many meetings in order to prepare me for how professional environments and projects function.

Life at Responsiv

I have always been nervous before starting a techy role at any company because of the stereotype towards it. Responsiv ensures that its staff is social and motivated and not just robots.

We have a pub lunch or pizza lunch every month and often have very fun social events like golf and go-karting. It’s events like these that keep my enthusiasm high and that make me feel very fortunate for being part of Responsiv.

So Far and Going Forward

In the coming weeks I will be getting involved in learning and developing security systems, web application firewalls, high availability, server administration, OIDC, LDAPs and many more. I will also be completing an IBM course on ACE and MQ.

Overall, I am really glad I accepted my placement year at Responsiv. Mainly because the staff are highly skilled and experienced as well as passionate about what they do, and this makes me feel very blessed as I can and will learn a lot from them in order to have a successful career. It still amazes me how much I have learnt in just two months of starting at Responsiv, and there is still a long journey ahead of me.

I can’t wait to see how much more I’ll gain from this year.