My Software Developer Graduate role at Transport for Wales can be split into several categories:
Please use the links above to find out more about each of these categories or read below to find out more about my role in general.
This Graduate position is quite unique from the other graduates in that I don't have any rotations so I stay in one team the whole time I've been working!
We are a small team of four who take care of the main Transport for Wales webiste, tfw.wales (opens in new tab), including the Welsh language site trc.cymru (opens in new tab).
We mainly all work remotely, but every once in a while the stars align and we all meet up in the office for a day of collaboration and catching-up with colleagues! There's also usually some kind of important meeting or activity to be done because we are very efficient with our time.
This was actually in the old TfW office space in Newport which is no longer available. But it was great for our team while it lasted! Yes, I have a very alternatve style to the usual office attire, but that's the joy of being a Software Developer in Transport for Wales! I can wear whatever makes me comfortable, as long as it isn't inappropriate of course.
Although I don't have official rotations, I have worked closely with the Content Team and the User Experience Designer to help update the bits of the website you can see, as well as helping my own team ensure things keep running smoothly behind the curtain.
In August 2024, just before I completed my first year as a Software Development Graduate, I asked the Content Team manager if I could shadow the Content Publisher for a week, as a sort of informal mini rotation.
As our teams work closely together, I was also happy to use this opportunity to report any pain points back from the content team to the web developer team. The content team, and the designer, are regularly in contact with the web team but because both teams work very differently there are often small missed opportunities and sometimes miscommunication between teams.
I decided to use my communication skills to be a liason between teams, giving the content team my insight as a web developer but also being sure to escalate bigger issues to my line manager, who is also a lead software developer and certified Drupal expert. (Drupal is what the website is built on, by the way)!
This would help our two small teams collaborate better and make both teams' workload a little more straightforward. Having one single liason would also allow the web developer team to have more knowledge and insight to what is required of the content team on a daily basis and adapt the website components to work better for them, where possible.
The TfW Website has also been part of a government Accessibility Audit to ensure the website is accessible for all users of all abilities. There was a large report covering several areas of TfW's digital footprint including a few pages of the website I work on!
Although daunting at first, this audit was a great learning opportunity for me and the junior web developer to update older aspects of the website that we had not had the chance to look at closely before. We were also able to show off that our newly designed components were accessible for users and some issues would be addressed when the new designs were rolled-out across the site.
Our team collaborated with other teams across TfW to ensure the government requests were recognised, tracked and resolved in a timely manner. We used Jira tickets to track our tasks and collaboratively tested our solutions to ensure they met the requirements.
