Eight months into his apprenticeship scheme, our developer Max Webster-Khan updates us on his progress…
My name is Max and I’m one of the new apprentice developers for Zone. I currently work within the BMW group, primarily working on building responsive emails and banners for BMW retailers. In three weeks I’ll be moving to the Genomics team, which will mean working on the website, focusing particularly on user interface.
Getting creative with coding
My biggest challenge so far has been learning the intricacies of emails and banners. Although the code is relatively simple in concept, there are many nuances and problems that arise. This is where you have to be creative due to coding limitations. It’s been an amazing learning experience, especially making great use of stack overflow and other websites to find a not-always straightforward answer.
Working in lockdown
Being fortunate enough to be able to do my job from any location is a blessing when faced with lockdown, especially with the support from everyone at Zone. But I do miss the atmosphere in office with the amazing people we work alongside and learn from every day.
Filling knowledge gaps
As I came to Zone from being self-taught, I had some gaps in my knowledge which I’ve managed to fill thanks to the support of my manager, Nick Waddington, and his fantastic skill set and complete willingness to teach. With BMW I have thoroughly enjoyed learning not just how to code but also how the team collaborates to provide high-quality client work.
I’ve worked on building some of the pages for the new live Engine site for the BMW retailers. I also got the opportunity to learn from and work alongside some of the other roles in BMW, such as the amazing artworkers who provided me with support on the Engine pages. On my email/banner builds they have helped me with the assets while building up my Photoshop skill set.
My biggest achievement so far
My best achievement was passing the first exam of two for the apprenticeship scheme, which was based on Software Methodologies and the Software Development Lifecycle. This was especially important for me to bridge a gap in my knowledge around how the team works to reach an end goal, whether that’s working in agile, waterfall or anything else. I’ll be able to use that knowledge to understand other roles within Zone. It will also prepare me to work in an agile way in Genomics.
