David

Software Engineer

Studied: MSci Astrophysics (Natural Sciences), Cambridge University

I've always enjoyed programming as a hobby and wanted to develop my programming skills further. Delcam has provided lots of support to help me achieve that goal since I joined the company in July.

In the first week, we were given a fast, comprehensive review course of C++ and an introduction to Delcam's development environment by one of Delcam's top C++ programmers. I am now on a series of two-month training placements.

The placements are a great opportunity to get directly involved in and rapidly learn Delcam's development processes - which vary quite a bit across departments. Both placements have started off with adding small features and making bugfixes that have taken me comfortably up to speed with programming and led into larger projects.

My first placement was in ArtCAM, a relief modelling design and machining package used by artists for engraving, woodworking, jewellery and coinage. My team leader gave me two projects: developing vector deformation tools, and redesigning some user interface controls. He was very keen to draw on my existing experience in web development, so about half of my work was on ArtCAM's web browser-based user interface. I was also given the freedom to direct my own research in the vector editing project, developing several prototypes along the way, which will provide useful material for future features and releases.

I've just moved to the dental team. Delcam is creating a full dental restoration solution, including scanning, editing and producing restorations. So far I have upgraded the measuring tool and my first main project will be to improve restoration milling efficiency in the new version of DentMill. The project will be an interesting and challenging combination of research, specification-writing and programming.

Delcam employees organised walking and karting events over the summer which were great fun and well-attended by people from across the company. They have an on-site canteen and gave me accommodation for the first month whilst I settled into the area. One of my favourite parts about Delcam so far has to be the Friday morning cooked breakfasts!