As a recent participant, here are my experiences of what you can expect before, during and after going through the Scott Logic graduate programme.

For me, the process kicked off early in 2020 after I submitted my CV to the Graduate Programme. Fast forward two weeks and I was invited to take part in the interview process:

Step 1: The puzzling part

The first stage consisted of logic puzzles designed to test my abstract thinking and problem solving skills. I only struggled with one but Scott Logic’s people were on hand to offer hints that helped me look at the puzzle from a different angle. That was followed by a brief chat with one of the team about my background, plus I had the opportunity to ask questions about Scott Logic’s development process and how it worked.

Step 2: The revealing interview

Two weeks later and I was asked back, this time for an interview with a more senior staff member. This was a chance for them to find out about me, my ongoing experiences at uni, my previous job in e-learning, and my past work placement at IBM. The interview actually felt more like a conversation with the interviewer always happy to answer my questions, which left me with a lasting impression that they were open and transparent.

Step 3: The code crunch

After the interview, I was set some coding tasks, which consisted of scenarios like “how would you design this system?”, and “how would you write the code to solve this problem?”. At the end of the process, I realised that I never once felt like Scott Logic was trying to catch me out, but just wanted to get a clear idea about the person I was and how I approached work and problem-solving.

Step 4: The locked down induction

I must have done something right as I was offered a graduate job and a competitive salary in the same month, which I accepted. Now fast forward through to me finishing uni in June 2020 and then on to September and my official start date at Scott Logic. This was later than usual because of the pandemic.

It’s here that we go off script as, by this point, everyone was now working from home. This meant the induction process was held on Microsoft Teams a week before the official start so that all the graduates could hook up and get to know each other. Then in the first official week, staff gave talks about what it takes to be a consultancy and our roles within the company. To complement these talks, Scott Logic also arranged a series of online social events to help us gel as a group as well as make us feel at home.

Step 5: The targeted training

The induction process was followed by a month and a half of coding training where we were given a series of tasks to complete each week, sometimes in different languages. We each had our own mentor, typically someone who had been a graduate developer themselves. If we had any questions or ever got stuck, they’d give us advice before analysing our code, telling us how we could have improved the end result.

Step 6: The super (smart) work

I was pulled on to a healthcare client project as we approached the end of training. It was right at the start of the project so I got to see the exploratory phase where the client’s requirements are identified and mapped. We worked in pairs, coding and screen-sharing to get each other’s feedback and come up with ideas.

The highlight has been watching how the project’s senior architect works. He’s an extremely smart person, able to extract huge amounts of information from a client to help deliver the project they want. The experience has actually been the real training for me as I am picking up so many ideas and ways of working.

Taking the Next Step

That brings us to the present day with my schedule filled with coding for the new client, as well as the occasional evening of Scott Logic-arranged pub quizzes and board games on Teams. The point is, even though we’re all working remotely, the company has gone out of its way to make me feel at home from the first stage of the interview through to working with my first client and beyond.