Its been a year, I DID IT, WOW! I can not believe I’ve been a graduate software engineer at ASOS for a YEAR. Tanda TWO years ago would never believe this. I’m super happy with what I’ve accomplished working for such a DOPE company. I am still a NOOB but I am a better noob than I was a year ago and that for me is enough.

I’m truly thankful to ASOS for taking a chance on me. I remembering receiving the news that I got the job and I was over the moon. From day one it was hard, this was my first proper job EVER!  I was out of my depth and there was SO MUCH to learn (I am not a natural ‘NERD’ I’m a #basicnerd)

ASOS.com is the website and its easy to just see it as an online shop but many AMAZING people are working behind the scenes to make it what it is. On the graduate role I rotated 4 different teams for the duration of 3 months.

Here is a quick summary of each:

• Bag and Checkout Services: Everything to do with the items in your basket and the process to make that final payment. 
• Stock and Fulfilment: Ensuring we know the number of items in stock available in the warehouse for you to make purchase etc. 
• Digital Assessment Management: The software that supports all the videos and images of all the beautiful models 😉 and products that you see on the website.
• Browse: Ensuring you can make a search in the search bar and receive results.

It was hard rotating every three months but looking back I’m so glad I got the opportunity to do so, as I personally I feel like I have a depth understanding on how the different services come together to make ASOS.


SO…here are my THREE TOP TIPS for anyone on or starting a graduate role, based on what I’ve learnt over the past year.

1. EVERYONE YOU MEET IS YOUR MENTOR!
   I used to be on an ‘urgent’ search for a mentor. You always hear people talk about how throughout university and their career they had an amazing mentor by their side, whom found them opportunities, supported them and helped them network. (I always used to long for this)
   Until I had a conversation with someone and it dawned on me, I can make anyone my mentor…they just won’t know they are my mentor. During my graduate role I rotated 4 teams and on each of those teams someone/several people were my temporary mentors. I gained knowledge from watching them work and the conversation we would have. I will not mention names but there are like 7+ people who positively affected and continue to affect me at work.

   Outside of work I use LinkedIn and Twitter to reach out to people I think are DOPE and even if its brief conversation during that moment they are schooling me and I’m learning from them. Don’t get me wrong having one fixed MENTOR is dope and if you have one that’s great, It’s just not my experience.
   I truly do believe that many people you meet at work or randomly on Twitter have the potential to be a mentor in one way or another. There is ALWAYS something you can learn from someone especially early in your career.

2. BE NOSY!
   As a graduate your role is to learn, be engaged and contribute when you can. I would spend time looking at my teams backlog to understand what they are working on and I would just pick up a bug or a story that looked simple. I would then mess around with the code on my own to see if I could create a fix or solve a problem, most times my code would suck and yes its a little embarrassing when you work on something and another developer literally completes it in seconds but that in itself creates an opportunity for knowledge sharing with someone on your team.

   This leads me onto the importance of Paired Programming…
   Wiki definition:
   

   Pair programming (agile software development technique)

   Two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in.

   I learnt a lot pairing however I did tend to let the experienced developer drive more and I would tend to just observe and talk. It’s something I am still working on myself but yeah…don’t be afraid to drive the pairing (remember you are graduate no-one expects you to be MASTER NERD) 

3. YOU HAVE TIME, USE IT.  Lets be real, you wont be busy all the time because realistically as a graduate there isn’t much you can do ALL the time BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO IS… 

• Setup meetings with people from other teams whom you find interesting. Setup meetings with the other grads too…However do not feel disheartened if they tell you they’re working on so much on their current team. (Seriously do not take it personally LOL speaking from experience.)
• Refer back to tip 2 

With number 3 I just want to emphasise that there will be moments when you feel like your not contributing or doing much for the team but ALWAYS there is something you can for yourself.

I have a document of everything I learnt throughout the year, I would spend hours working on random coding tasks and I liked setting up meetings with people around the business and in my team to hear their experiences (and because I literally need things to be explained to me at least FOUR times before I fully understand it…again I’m a #basicnerd)

I still have alot to learn. I know I have potential and I’m working on it. Over the past year, being at ASOS has really worked me, I’ve grown and have gotten a lot from them too…(beers and discount included)

So I will end this post by sharing my DOPEST moments thus far at ASOS:

•  Doing an overnight release. I know its super sad but being a part of a release into production (12am to 5am) was so DOPE and exciting. 
• My end of year review. I always find it weird talking about myself and my progression, usually its something I keep to myself but I was super proud of myself and it was great talking about what I had done over the year. 
• LASTLY, meeting…a model who I think is SUPER CUTE, like legit he so fine. (I have no shame whatever LOL only god can judge me) 

Overall, I’m proud to say that I was part of ASOS’s first EVER Software Engineering Graduate Scheme. During this next year I hope to work on being brave and stepping out my comfort zone to be a better NERD and yeah…I hope ya’ll enjoyed reading this.

xo