Returning from a year in industry to complete their final year at Newcastle University, we interviewed Zach Smith about their time with Newcastle Strategic Solutions Limited. This is what they had to say:
Who did you do your industrial placement with?
Newcastle Strategic Solutions Limited
What was your role?
Software QA Tester
Why did you do a placement?
I did a placement in order to gain some concrete work experience in the software development industry, this is so I could hopefully gain an advantage over my competition when applying for jobs upon graduation
When did you start applying and how many places did you apply for?
I started applying around February/March time and applied for at most 20 people
How was the application experience?
Relatively straightforward, mostly just making sure my CV was up to date. I wrote a cover letter for each company I applied for and tweaked my CV in scenarios where different experiences might’ve been more useful
What, if any, help did you get from the university when applying?
The help I received from the university was mostly to do with their careers site, where companies could post placement opportunities. It was a huge help and ultimately lead me to get this placement
What work did you do over the course of your placement year?
I got the opportunity to do a range of things:
- Programming automated tests for builds of NSSLs websites which introduced new features.
- Testing on live servers of clients to ensure that everything was working as expected before deploying for the public to see and use.
- I also had the opportunity to manually test features on the website to ensure that they met the accessibility criteria required.
- I was working alongside teammates in a scrum team and would test whatever the developers would work on before giving it the seal of approval.
How was the overall experience of doing a placement?
Fantastic, I was treated really well during my time at NSSL, except for the odd stressful moment, I enjoyed it. One key value that I really appreciated working there was that my input was important and was truly taken into consideration when working on different projects even when it wasn’t about testing. I made a lot of new friends there during the early talent program that they ran too.
My experience here helped dictate what portion of computer science I would like to specialize in for my final year. Thanks to my time testing the accessibility of the website and new software developed, it has made me want to work in accessibility and hopefully work to improve how accessible software is to the general public.
Would you like to go back to that company after your final year?
Based on my experience? Yes.
With my current circumstances? No, I only say this because following graduation I’d prefer to be employed somewhere where I can live with my family whilst working for a while before I go settle in somewhere like Newcastle. To be honest though, if I was offered a high enough wage to cover the expenses of living alone easily then I probably would take something from NSSL.