Backend Engineer and Test Development Review
at IBM
Degree Apprenticeship
Computer Science
Winchester
Review Submitted: April 2026
Overall Rating
4.5 /5
The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!
4.5/5
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Overview of Role
5/5
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Skills Development
4.4/5
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Structure and Support
Overview of Role
Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis:
5/5
My role is fantastic, I have day to day responsibilities of writing tests, developing on premise solutions for potential customers, enhancing our workflow by enabling our internal AI tools to help developers and testers with our testing framework. I currently have a leadership role in my team where I am developing tests for an AI integration with our core product alongside a more junior team member and individually carry out research into on premise AI inference capabilities for our product.
To what extent do you enjoy your programme?
4/5
The programme is tough. There’s no doubt about it. But the benefits far outweigh the extra workload needed to balance a good work performance with university.
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
5/5
Compared to when I started, absolutely. I had little programming knowledge, no real understanding of large scale business operation and how software companies decide what to develop and understand what large corporation customers want from a product.
Structure and Support
How well organised/structured is your programme?
4/5
Overall it is great for me personally, the structure is unique to every person as their manager will have a big impact on the time dedication they have for university.
How much support do you receive from your employer?
5/5
I believe I have complete and frankly amazing support from my employer.
How much support do you receive from your training provider when working towards your qualifications?
5/5
At the Open University, I have all the support I could need just an email or phone call away and resources online for whenever I want to use them.
How well do you feel that your qualification (through your training provider) helps you to perform better in your role?
3/5
Being transparent, very very little transfers over to my role. The real working world is vastly different from the theoretical taught at university but there are grounded systems that can be attributed to how we work.
Are there extra-curricular activities to get involved in at your work? (For example, any social activities, sports teams, or even professional networking events.)
5/5
Yes, there are plenty of extracurriculars. At Hursley, we have a summer ‘Olympics’ competition involving the entire site with sporting, coding, photography, cryptography competitions etc.
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend IBM to a friend?
Yes
Why?
The work life balance and levels of support from the managers is outstanding. I haven’t heard anything like it from anybody I know at another company.
What tips or advice would you give to others applying to IBM?
Be yourself, be honest, be personable. Sure they want to see technical ability, but there’s so much more to you they want to see before getting into your value just as an individual. Nearly every product within IBM is a massive team and they want to see how you can work effectively with others.
