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Just a couple of projects at university under my belt. Luckily, the support and training here is first class. I was closely 'mentored' over the first few months, so making up for what I didn't know was pretty painless. Starting in a whole new area and learning a whole new set of skills was actually pretty fun!
After you arrive it's not long before you're given real useful tasks to do. It feels pretty satisfying to actually be accomplishing things, and contributing to a large project, after just working 'for yourself' on practice papers and so on for three years. Sometimes, being given a task to do, perhaps working on a large, complicated software product (which you probably don't understand) can be a bit intimidating. But don't worry - your mentor will be there for when you get stuck, or aren't sure of what's going on. They will give you frequent informal help and feedback on how you're doing.
There are also more formal ways of giving you feedback, and making sure you and your manager agree on how well you're doing and what you should be aiming to do better. Every three months your manager will write you an 'individual development plan', which you discuss and agree. It describes the things you will do over the following three months, in very concrete and realistic terms, in order to improve and learn as fast as possible. This isn't just in the company's interests - the quicker you find your feet and start to feel confident in your job, the more you will settle in and start to enjoy yourself! On top of that, your review (every nine months) gives you a detailed and honest explanation of how you've been doing, and gives you a chance to reflect on, and talk about, what your longer term plans are at the company. It's a very good and constructive way of focussing you on the broader picture of your career, where otherwise you might forget that in amongst the detail of everyday work
So, with development plans, reviews, mentors and what-not - it's a pretty good head-screwed-on, get-the-job-done kind of a place to work. Good atmosphere, agreeable people, interesting work. Throw in a few morale trips (Crete this year!), plenty of sport at lunch, and a few free drinks after work, and it's not a bad gig at all! Hope you decide to apply. Maybe see you in the canteen next year…
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