The Big Picture

Following Michael’s Integrated Master’s in Physics from the University of Hull he is now working for BAE as a graduate software engineer.

“I didn’t do very well in my A levels at all, but on results day Hull offered me the Physics Foundation Year. I pretty much just accepted it straight away and then started booking my accommodation for university! I did well in my Foundation and First Year, so I requested to transfer to the Masters. So, I did 5 years at University, I was very glad I had those years at uni, if it’s gonna set you up and make you feel more confident about what you’re doing it’s 100% worth it. But yeah, getting bad results in your A levels is not the end of the world!”

“So I actually started testing the waters of my career in the beginning of my 3rd year. A family friend said, why don’t you apply to a defence company for like an internship or a graduate role? See what you can get? So, I did. And I got rejected. But that was my first taste of the defence industry, and I think I was hooked from there.”

“I’ve done Python all throughout my university, and then a module creating computational models, using languages. So I thought, I’ll go for the software engineering role. Although now I don’t do anything software related really as the team I was placed in didn’t lean heavily on that.” 

Day to Day

“The Team I’ve been placed on test the software that the development teams output but we do it in a more of a, we call it, end to end testing, and we try and put our mind in the customers way of thinking. It’s called integration testing, so putting all the pieces together and testing it as a final product, we raise the defect, ‘this doesn’t work, go back to the demo’.”

“The way they’ve gone about the graduate roles is they tend to put you in a job and you work it. So they want you to do the full 18 months in one team. However, you have the opportunity to, if you really don’t like it, you can transfer teams.”

“Technically speaking, they expect graduates to have done most of their modules and be pretty much prepared on the 12 month mark and that last 6 months is preparing for the EPR, doing any development objectives you might need to do and set any more stretches. I was kind of in a fortunate position where I managed to take on a really big challenge that helped the project out a lot. At the beginning of this year, our product owner/ team manager moved on so after being here 12 months I now run the team. In software we use the agile principle where you treat your team’s work as a product. So I’m responsible for the delivery of that.”

“We work in 3 to 4 monthly release cycles. A typical day, I come in half 8, get any early administration work done, early chats with people, then we have daily stand ups, they’re called ‘Scrum’ in agile, at 9:15 every morning with all of the team, we basically talk about what work we did yesterday, what work we are doing today, it’s short and brief. And then any announcements from myself or our scrum master or if there’s any blockers from the team that’s stopping them doing their work. And then the next big meeting for me now in my new role is ‘Scrum of Scrums’, so that’s where all the team product owners come together to discuss any blockers throughout the projects at that next level up.”

“And then it’s just work! Whatever needs doing, whatever you’ve planned to do. So, every 2 weeks we do team planning and we monitor that on Jira, which is an Atlassian tool set which you create tickets for to monitor the workflows. I can’t say that one day is the same or ever has been besides the start and end times!“

“The point of agile is, you switch tasks regularly, you’re meant to be very fluid. Of course, there are going to be things that require like a full day’s attention, but it’s expected that you’ll be probably doing something in the morning and have to do something else in the afternoon or hour by hour. It was nothing I’d ever seen before; it was completely abstract to me. But agile encourages self-motivation, self-organisation.”

The Physics Connection

“I think probably the biggest skill that physicists offer to a company is the methodology and logic behind problem solving. And in software, there’s a lot of documentation that goes behind it. So being able to document your way of thinking is really important. Any company you go into is gonna use some form of computing language or some software, and because the size of data sets is impossible to do by hand, Python is a valuable skill, even if it’s not an extensive knowledge in Python. Once you learn one language, you can kind of pretty much pick up on the syntax of another”.

“Physics has set me up exceptionally well because my role now is just problem solving 24/7. That’s what I’m there for is to solve the team’s problems, make things work and then deliver on our promises. It’s just like constant neuron activation for me on busy days. So, I do love it!”

“Everything I’ve learned for my job I’ve learned from day one of the job, I didn’t know it before I started. It takes 3 to 5 years of university to train you up on those soft skills. You can learn the job itself when you’re there.”

The Application Process

Micheal explains its quite similar to applying to most large companies; send in a CV and Cover Letter, fill out the online forms, followed by online personality tests. An automated interview where you record the answers to the questions. And then a face-to-face interview. “But for a defence contractor that’s just the start, then, of applying for your security clearance, which is another process.”

“You’ve got to kind of numb yourself to the fact you’re going to get rejected by a lot of places. The first couple of rejections hit hard, and then, I think you just have to accept it’s a percentage chance that you get offered a role. I’m one of the types of people, if I put in my application for a company I’ve really looked into the business and I can see myself working here. You start to feel something, and then you get the rejection from it, and it hits. I’d say, that’s okay, because you need to have a bit of a passion for the company, especially if you get to the interview stage”.

Any Advice?

“I was nervous at first, you come in, you get imposter syndrome, feeling like you don’t know enough. But you learn so long as you apply yourself. If you’re feeling that it means you’re open to learn very quickly, you’re gonna be receptive of criticism and knowledge. So, it’s a very okay place to be when you start. If you are joining as a graduate, your employers expectations are managed. They expect you to not have any industry experience. And if you say I don’t know something it’s absolutely fine.”