Nieuwsgierig naar hoe onze ING Top Engineer Maike haar eerste maand als IT trainee heeft ervaren? In deze blog vertelt deelt ze haar ervaringen over haar allereerste week bij de ING, de trainingsmaand die ze heeft gevolgd bij ons op kantoor en natuurlijk de teambuilding op externe locatie!
At the start of my Top Engineers Program, the first day of my trainings month at Young Colfield I met my seven fellow trainees, who couldn’t be more different from one another. However, after a few days it became clear that we all did have a great connection that went beyond “talking code”. We went on a two day teambuilding trip together, where one might think “oh yet another teambuilding activity”. But, this one was different.
Guided by Anne (our Talent manager) and Anneloes (our Hiring manager) we embarked on a journey to Loosdrecht, where we kicked off the night with a cozy borrel sharing our own personal stories. This gave everyone the opportunity to get to know each other on a more personal level and it layed ground for the workshops on personal development that followed. We cooked a nice dinner together, completed an escape room and had a boxing training. Although, this wasn’t quite a regular boxing training. It focused on our behavior and communication towards other people and it did not leave anything unexposed ;-). All in all we learned a lot about ourselves and about each other.
After 3 exciting weeks at the Young Colfield office we ended with a bang by presenting a new app we made, in front of the ING managers! And then, the time had come: my first day at the ING office. My mentor Roy (former Young Colfield Trainee) and I arranged to meet at 08:00 o’clock at the ING office. After all they say “the early bird catches the worm”. We kicked off straight away: he showed me around the building, dragged me along to all his meetings and most importantly he patiently answered all my questions all day long. At the end of my first day I felt overwhelmed by all the new faces and information input but first and foremost happy that everyone was so amazingly accommodating. The following days we worked on getting me “up and running”, which basically translates to struggling with the IT service desk, download software, request access rights and in case something is not working, pass time with completing standard onboarding trainings. Furthermore, I got to know my squad: 5 Front/Backend Developers, 1 Product Owner, 1 Customer Journey Expert and now me. Even though they are a mix of Indian and Dutch, I sometimes had the feeling they are speaking Chinese. In reality it was a mix of SCRUM methodology and technical terms, which were mostly new to me. Next to my mentor Roy, everyone has been amazing in answering questions and making me feel part of the team. Thursday we all went to the Oktoberfest borrel at the office together, which was super fun! The week ended with me being all set up and ready to go and I even got my own little story to work on. Furthermore, I was surprised that I (no prior experience in Backend Development) recognized quite a bit of code because we worked with similar technologies during the training at Young Colfield. I was also briefed that I will be doing some machine learning in the near future. Exciting! All in all, it was a great first week and I am very much looking forward to the following months!
