TBA Leicester is a private sector, Leicester-based Software Company and part of the TBA group, officially formed in April 2017, comprising three sites: one in Leicester, one in Delft, and one in Doncaster. The group also has offices in Romania, Germany, and representatives in North America, South America, and Oceania. The group is owned by Finish company Konecranes, which specializes in the manufacture and service of cranes and lifting equipment, however, the group itself specializes in management solutions for container terminals and warehouses, particularly with their software, Autostore. In their own words, Autostore allows customers to “control the movement and storage of various types of cargo in and around a container terminal or port. The system enables you to make better use of your assets, labor, and equipment, plan your workload, and receive real-time information that enables cost-effective, improved decision-making” (TBA Group, 2019). Autostore is an extremely flexible and popular product, proof of this is found in the fact it is installed in “over 20 container terminals worldwide” (TBA Group, 2019), catering to facilities that can process 75’000 containers per year to facilities, which can process more than 750’000 thousand containers per year, and managing everything on the terminal, from the trucks bringing to containers to the gate, to the ships that take the containers across the ocean, and everything in between. The group has recently taken on a massive project in the form of the Hadarom Container Terminal in Israel. This is a semi-automated terminal with a capacity of two million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent), this means that the terminal is expected to process two million twenty-foot containers each year, and is aiming to be fully operational by 2021.
I have been lucky enough to work for this company for the last month. My role within the company was that of a 'placement software engineer', which in practice was similar to that of a junior software engineer. As a result of this, I was placed in the development team rather quickly, starting with basic tasks, before branching out into more varied and complicated areas of the system. In this essay, I'm going to talk about my experience in the first 30 days of working for the company and what I've learned.
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The first crucial point during my placement came before I had even stepped foot into the building. I have had previous jobs in this field, however, these were attained with the help of a family friend, and were also for the most part remote, meaning I remotely connected to their system from home. Even when I did have to go into their office, they were only small companies with a very limited number of employees, and they all shared a very relaxed atmosphere. As I arrived at the gates of TBA Leicester, it became clear that this was nothing like what I had previously experienced. It was a large facility, with large, imposing gates. It was immediately obvious that this was not what I was previously used to. This was a large, professional organization with men in suits and expensive cars parked in the car park. It was rather overwhelming and extremely intimidating. Seeing this from the outside, naturally led me to assume that the first several months of my placement would be spent taking tea and coffee orders. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong. As I stated in my August Log Book at the time, “I am happy that I have been given legitimate tasks within the company, rather than just getting tea and coffee. With this in mind, I like to think that during my first month, I have really risen to the challenge, although it is obvious I still have a lot to learn”.
That being said, the items I was tasked with weren’t difficult, for the most part, they were basic items like updating user views in the database or fixing very small and well-defined bugs in the Visual Basic 6 client. The biggest thing I learned from a technical level during this first month was the testing standard. I learned that the level of testing I had become accustomed to during my university studies simply wasn’t up to industry standard, and that certainly bit me in the beginning. However, I like to think I quickly adapted to this by learning from my mistakes as I went.
The main positive I gained from my first 30 days of employment was confidence. As stated above, upon entering TBA I initially felt quite intimidated, but after I met and greeted each member of the team, trying to remember as much as I could about each of them including names and areas of expertise (so I knew who I could ask if I have a problem in the future), I found that everyone was quite welcoming, friendly, and most importantly very patient, creating an excellent environment for me to begin to learn.
Overall, I considered the results of my first month to be positive, an opinion which seemed to be reinforced by my supervisor, who commented positively in my January Log Book: “The first few weeks for anyone joining is always a bit frustrating. This is due to the amount of new information that needs learning before any substantial work can be undertaken. However, Callum has shown a positive attitude and got on well with all tasks assigned. We have some more challenging tasks lined up for the coming weeks and are keen to see how Callum performs with these”.
In conclusion, these 30 days at the company were extremely useful for me. It was a great experience that gave me a real understanding of the industry in which I want to grow professionally. TBA Leicester has been a great place to achieve all of my career goals and I look forward to continuing to be part of such a great team of professionals.
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