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March 7, 2018

Audatex Apprenticeship – Professional Programming Playground

A day in the life of Jacob Unsworth, Apprentice Software Engineer at Audatex

Hi, my name is Jacob and I’m a Level 5 Software Engineer apprentice at Audatex. Day to day life as an apprentice at Audatex is full of interesting work and valuable opportunities. In the time I have been at Audatex I have worked in 3 different teams and no day is the same.

In the integration and regional team, my tasks revolve around meeting product feature goals for our latest customer releases and introducing new functionality to our systems. When working with the automation test team, my role includes identifying bugs before their release, automating APIs and web interfaces to test their functionality from a user perspective, and trying to identify edge cases that may cause problems. Both of these require constant problem solving and attention to detail, as well as the ability to quickly understand multiple a variety of technologies. It’s exciting to be working on our current products and making a difference to the solutions our customers use on a daily basis.

My favourite thing about working at Audatex is the staff and managers. They are very friendly, easy to talk to and will all take time out of their days and schedules to help me really thrive in my role. The work can be difficult, but the elation and satisfaction of completing a difficult task makes it all worthwhile.

The most challenging part of my role has to be how quickly I have moved between the different teams and working on a lot of different projects. However, this has constantly kept me on my toes, and the opportunities to work with new people has allowed me to learn from a lot of industry professionals of varying levels, and this is an opportunity I am lucky to have.

The apprenticeship has given me access to decades of knowledge and experiences I wouldn’t have had access to in a normal university degree. My apprenticeship is a professional programming playground in which I have been able to learn and develop on a wide range of skills that have helped me understand where I want to go in my career. Learning technologies including C#, ASP, Javascript and Java has been a highlight for me, including building on my soft skills that meant I had to change the way I communicate with my fellow colleagues from time to time, and shown me the value of personal reflection.

In five years time I hope to be moving into a managerial role, where I can be responsible for hiring, encouraging and mentoring the next generation of apprentices and helping them learn in the same way that I did. This industry requires us to be constantly learning and growing, and I think that helping others to do so, whether that be in a professional or personal capacity, is a responsibility that all of us should take on.

I would highly recommend an apprenticeship to others looking what to do next after school, for the constant support, opportunities to stand on your own two feet and providing a safe environment to grow and learn at the same time. You leave the apprenticeship with money in your pocket and more real-world learning and experience than you ever get at university.