Devin Rajesh Rathod, 4th Year Computer Science Student

Reflections on my Year in Industry

When I was in my second year of university, everyone talked about it being the ‘internship year’ and how it was the year to secure a place to get work experience during the summer. Initially, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue a summer internship or an industrial placement. I was undecided about what I wanted to specialise in after graduating with a computer science degree so I felt that conducting a year-long placement would give me the opportunity to explore my interests further in real-world environments.

Between my second and final year, I worked at Solirius Reply as a Service Centre Analyst, where I was placed within the Service Practice. I was drawn to Solirius Reply because of its exposure to technology consulting and different types of projects and technologies.

Going into my placement year, I was initially intimidated as I felt I knew less than others, particularly as this was my first step into a full-time role. Nevertheless, my team and manager were very supportive in assigning me tasks, building up my confidence, and giving me opportunities to choose what I wanted to work on.

I enjoyed the experience, particularly as I was the first placement student at the company. This meant I was able to get involved from the very start and learn about my strengths and interests. This placement year enabled me to gain experience in a variety of areas, including software engineering, quality engineering, service management and more.

When I started, my initial responsibilities involved conducting development, testing and documentation work for internal projects owned by my practice. From there, I worked on both internal and client projects doing migrations, testing, development, research and process improvement.

One of the most unique opportunities I had was working as part of a Continuous Improvement squad within a government client project, which included a group of software engineers, quality engineers, DevOps engineers, delivery managers, and product owners. I enjoyed being part of this project, as priorities shifted and I had exposure to different software and tooling. At the same time, it was challenging when I was onboarded, as most of the team had been working on the service for a long time and I had to spend time getting used to their processes and ways of working.

Another challenging but exciting opportunity I had was developing my own application utilising Ruby on Rails, a web framework I had previously been exposed to but was less familiar with. This project was completed as part of the ‘Graduate Academy’ training conducted at the halfway point of my placement. I challenged myself more to showcase the skills and knowledge I had gained throughout the past six months. I was particularly proud that I presented my project to the company-wide audience and received positive feedback from my colleagues.

I believe that through completing a placement year, I applied myself and immersed myself in the work I was doing, which helped me reinforce my interest in consulting and working with technology. Currently in my final year, I have found confidence in conducting projects, utilising software and finding new ways of working. I’ve also recognised the importance of collaborating with others and have enjoyed pursuing opportunities at university before graduating this year.

My advice to students considering a placement year is that if you aren’t sure what to do after graduation and want to gain as much exposure as possible, consider a placement year and the opportunities that come with it. It’s up to you what you make of it, and if you stay curious and challenge yourself, it will work out for you.