Level 4 Test Engineer Apprenticeship Summer 2023

Introduction
Since it was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, IBM has been behind many of the most significant technological achievements of the last century, from the invention of the floppy disk to the latest developments in quantum computing. IBM software and hardware navigated the first astronauts to the moon; we were behind the first ATMs; our products process billions of dollars worth of financial transactions every day; we run some of the largest retail websites around the globe; our applications, infrastructure and services have taken a leading role in the fight against cancer, and more recently in managing the global response to the Covid pandemic.

One thing common to all of these examples is the high cost of failure, whether that be in financial terms, environmental impact or even human lives. With millions of people around the world every day depending on the systems we build, these systems must be fast; secure; reliable; and they must work as designed, repeatedly and consistently. An outage in one of our services could be headline news within minutes.

Your Role and Responsibilities
As a Test Engineer Apprentice within our Quality Engineering and Test Practice, this is just a small selection of what you could be involved in.

• Designing and developing tests to find and fix bugs.
• Writing code to develop automated testing frameworks to execute hundreds of tests to verify complex products across different industries.
• Applying the latest cognitive techniques to efficiently find defects.
• Using threat modelling and attack vector analysis to secure sensitive data.
• Building end to end pipelines that automatically test and validate code at every stage from development to deployment in Production.
• Writing code and using automated tools to simulate thousands of users on a website.
• Using the latest chaos engineering concepts to test the ability of a system to withstand different kinds of planned and unplanned failures.

Skills/attributes we are looking for

• A strong analytical thinker and open to continuously learning new technologies and fields.
• Flexibility and adaptability. You will be moving to different projects and industries during your apprenticeship (so you could be testing fighter aircraft engine builds one month, and financial trading systems handling billions of dollars of business the next month.)
• Have an inquisitive mind about finding errors, and not afraid to keep asking "what if"!
• Can understand both the business domain and the technical implementation
• Good communication skills both written and spoken. You will be working with fellow team members, stakeholders within IBM and clients too.

What we look for

• You don’t need to be studying a business or technology subject, but you must have a keen interest and passion for Technology.
• Have achieved at least 5 GCSE (or equivalent) at Grade C/4 or above these must include Maths and English Language
• We also accept Level 2 Skills Tests as a GCSE equivalent in Maths and English.
• You will need to be mobile as all our apprenticeship roles will be project based and typically you will find yourself working at client sites which will require extensive travel and staying away from home during the week.
• Our base locations are across the UK - the 3 locations are Manchester, London, and Hurlsey (near Winchester)
• You must be authorised to work in the UK and have resided in England for the last 3 years.
• These roles are not remote working you will be required to be in the office at your base location when not on a client site.

Required Technical and Professional Expertise

• You don’t need to be studying a business or technology subject, but you must have a keen interest and passion for Technology.
• Have achieved at least 5 GCSE (or equivalent) at Grade C/4 or above these must include Maths and English Language
• We also accept Level 2 Skills Tests as a GCSE equivalent in Maths and English.
• You will need to be mobile as all our apprenticeship roles will be project based and typically you will find yourself working at client sites which will require extensive travel and staying away from home during the week.
• Our base locations are Manchester, London, Hurlsey (near Winchester) a and you must live within commutable distance to these locations
• You must be authorised to work in the UK, have lived in England for the last 3 years.
• These roles are not remote working you will be required to be in the office at your base location when not on a client site.

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise
none
About Business Unit IBM Corporate Headquarters (CHQ) team represents a variety of functions such as marketing, finance, legal, operations, HR, and more, all working together to solve some of the world's most complex problems, help our clients achieve success and build collaborative work environments for IBMers.
Your Life @ IBM In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

This job requires you to provide your COVID-19 vaccination status with supporting documentation, where legally permissible.

About IBM IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 50 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.
Location Statement IBM wants you to bring your whole self to work and for you this might mean the ability to work flexibly. If you are interested in a flexible working pattern, please talk to our recruitment team to find out if this is possible in the current working environment.
Being You @ IBM IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.