Drasko's Experience

Hi, I am Drasko and would like to share my impressions of the Graduate Program at RecordPoint. I worked as an intern at RecordPoint during my studies. I was offered a place in the graduate program after completing my Computer Science (Big Data) degree at the University of Wollongong.  

RecordPoint’s graduation program is a well-structured 9-month rotation program. You get to work in different areas of the company and experience and learn first-hand the full software development lifecycle. You learn what is involved in developing, supporting and maintaining a software product.

After my experiences as an intern at RecordPoint, I was excited to be offered a place in the graduate program. I accepted without hesitation.

My Three Rotations in the Graduate Program

My first team was Customer Support. Here I learned about both the current and the legacy versions of the RecordPoint software, and how to use tools required to complete the tasks.  

Working directly with clients gave me an understanding of the product. It gave me valuable insights about the issues they are facing with the software. This experience created a solid base for my next rotation work in the development team.

My second rotation was on one of RecordPoint’s Development Teams.

This rotation exposed me to the software development life cycle, excluding the deployment phase. I worked with the team on planning and designing, developing both back-end and front-end, and later, testing.  

In the time spent as a part of the development team, my understanding of the concepts I have learned in my studies matured. I found the missing connecting pieces of the incomplete jigsaw puzzle left after my studies.

In my final rotation, I was in the Site Reliability Engineering team. The SRE team maintains and improves the SaaS services that RecordPoint offers.  

Being part of SRE was terrific. It exposed me to quite a few different tools. I was able to get skills on a wide variety of systems. This included working on database administration, learning and administering Linux, Windows, and working with Azure Cloud. I was also able to get involved with the development work.  

Getting into this area was intimidating at first, but as time went by, I adjusted to the hectic working pace and have very much enjoyed my time here.

What I Learned from the Graduate Program

I have learned so much in these nine months while tackling real-world challenges. I gathered knowledge and a greater understanding of many technologies/systems. These systems include Azure administration, PowerShell, C#, Python programming language, SQL server, ARM templates, control and alarm systems. However, most of all, I learned what it means to be a part of the team, and this was undoubtedly a highlight of the program.  

One thing common across the teams I worked with was a wonderful sense of teamwork and belonging. Everyone pitched in to make sure I quickly adapt to the new working environment and style. They prepared an extensive list of courses and documentation I might require.  They recorded videos of our training sessions and video snippets of explanations on how to get something done and made it all available for review in case I need to review. We had a pair programming session organized to speed up my professional development. I felt like everyone was approachable and available for my questions and ready to help. They did more than I ever expected to ensure I hone my existing, and acquire new, skills and knowledge and to become a contributing part of the team.  

Mentoring in the Graduate Program

In addition to the different rotations, part of the RecordPoint graduate program is to assign a mentor to each graduate. This mentoring was one of the highlights of the program for me. Having an experienced mentor available to express issues I was facing, worries, thoughts, and ask questions I probably wouldn’t ask in ordinary circumstances was much welcomed. I believe that I had great benefit from those meetings, learned about my mistakes, heard other people’s opinions, and shared issues, which were then solved.

As my last rotation is coming to close, I also realized that having the opportunity to go through the entire SDLC is indispensable. It is an excellent way to understand the complexity of the profession and the different skills needed. Furthermore, it helped me discover specific areas of interest and has opened a path for me to become a real expert in the field.

It was a great experience, and I am genuinely excited to continue to be a part of this growing organization that does incredible things.

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