My week of work experience at PDMS

Written by Dagan Harris 

Who am I? 

My name is Dagan Harris, and I have a passion for development. I have mainly had experience in .NET through school and extracurricular work, but I have also done various ventures into other languages like the Flutter framework which uses Dart. I hope to one day become a Developer, perhaps in the Backend/Low-Level areas. Through the Junior Achievement ('JA') Company Programme, I got a day’s work experience at PDMS earlier in the year and I am now back for a week.

Dagan Harris and Nick Collins during Dagan's initial visit in March 2024

Day One 

After my induction with Barb, where I was introduce to some internal systems that gave me a look at some of the administrative work people perform day-to-day, I met Nick Collins again, who I met through JA and the day I was here in March. Nick started by introducing me to the Angular framework which was new to me as the only web development skills I had was plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The idea of components was a new concept to me, which was why I was glad of the support from Nick, along with some learning material he gave me.

Day Two 

I continued my second day with Nick on my Angular project and introduced TailwindCSS to style the site instead of regular CSS. This was a game-changer for me, and I am glad I was taught it. It's technologies like these that are not taught in schools that should be. Nick’s experience helped here if I had any difficulties using Angular and TailwindCSS together, which I was glad of. I also had a lovely look at the infrastructure of the business with Rob Blenkinsop, and it was nice to see how all the equipment was managed. Then I had a look at GitHub Copilot, which integrates an LLM (Generative AI) with your code editor, allowing you to make changes on the fly and focus on the problem instead of the basics.

Day Three

On my third day at PDMS, I was introduced to Alexandra Koyfman, who gave me an introduction to the important job of Business Analysis – where problems in a business are identified and a solution is devised or a recommendation is given, which helps streamline and strengthen the business. We looked at a scenario project and I identified the stakeholders of the project, and then wrote some requirements for the project which are given to developers to code as features. I enjoyed Alexandra’s scenario and explanations as they gave me a truer look at the whole development lifecycle, not just the part where the code is written.

Later in the afternoon, Joe Scullion showed me Software Testing, which is another part of the lifecycle. We looked at the idea of testing to begin with, and what qualities are needed to be a tester. Then we looked at the scenario from before, and employed the concept of static testing, where the requirements are thought about logically without code and questions like “Do these make sense?” and “Are there any assumptions not given that have been made?” are asked. This gave me a real insight into how so many people work together to make a project happen.

Then Joe showed me Automated Testing of an example site, where a test that a human would have done on a form was completed by the automated tester in mere seconds. This was an interesting insight into how tools can be used to speed up work and make testing more technical. This extra look into other fields outside of just coding was vital in my opinion. It really has shaped the way I think about development as more than just coding – which as a fact can be accepted, but I can now say I have experienced it.

Day Four 

My fourth day at PDMS had me working with Georgia Vernon looking at UX design, which is the idea of designing interfaces and software in general to be as easy to use as possible. While designing our app for JA, my co-developer and I spent a good amount of time designing the interface, making me familiar with some of the tools and practices of this role. I started by compiling a report on the ease of use of some pages, which was a new way of looking at the role of UX as my experience up to this point was more practical, so I found this enjoyable and unique. I then continued by putting these recommendations I had made into practice by designing my own site off the report, which was very enjoyable and familiar territory for me which allowed me to challenge myself some more.

Day Five 

My final day started with a catch-up with Nick, which allowed me to review some of the work I had done and finish writing up my notes, after which I continued my Angular/TailwindCSS project, which I am going to continue in the future. I then went up to Marketing, with Hannah Williams and Joanne Pontee, and had an overlook on my week and the amazing experience I have had. I liked the fact I had the chance to talk about the week as a whole as it helped me digest it in a way, which was a nice note to end the week on as I was glad of their company.

Conclusion 

I have learnt so much during my time here this week and cannot thank the team enough for being so welcoming and accommodating. It has been valuable to my future career in ways I am sure I do not fully understand yet. I've had an amazing look into some technologies which have hooked my interest very well, and which I will continue to learn about in my own time.

I have also had a great insight into other parts of the business than pure development, which gave the week a lovely variety and provided some scope for the entire development lifecycle, and some perspectives I have never taken before on projects. It also gave my time doing development a clear focus and allowed me to be efficient and learn a lot about many different things in just a week. To anyone looking to start a career, this is the exemplar you can build from and learn from. I would recommend a week of work experience here to any aspiring individual.

To find out more about working at PDMS, visit our Careers section!