Software Engineer Review

I really enjoyed my internship. The work was interesting, and I got on well with my team and with the other interns. There were lots of great events outside of work, including free pub drinks every week or so, a 3-day Hackathon and the "Enger Games": a competition between the departments in a variety of sports and games. I'm definitely coming back next year

I felt quite valued. I felt included in team discussions and meetings on an equal level. The work I was given was actual programmer work, which would have had to be done by someone else on the team if I wasn't there, and was interesting, not just menial tasks or busy work.

Every intern is assigned a mentor, who is on your team and whose job it is to help you with your work. I was sat next to my mentor, so I could go to him whenever I encountered problems and had questions. They were very willing to help and able to answer my questions

I was given short 1-2 week projects to get on with. I didn't feel unreasonably busy, as I didn't feel under major pressure to finish my tasks quickly. While estimates were heavily encouraged, so was updating your estimates if you found that a task was more difficult than anticipated, which I ended up having to do

I was given a fair bit of independence to my tasks. I was assigned a feature to code for the product I was working on, but after being given a brief and suggested design for it, I was free to make any amendments to it that I wished to and was able to work on it independently, other than asking my mentor for help when I needed to.

I plan on doing a degree in maths, so the work I was doing, while interesting, doesn't seem especially useful for that, beyond general similar skills such as problem solving. However, I plan on coming back to MetaSwitch next summer for another internship, and so the training I've received here will be useful then, and coding is a fairly useful talent to refine

Metaswitch created a really nice, relaxed work environment. There was a fairly relaxed smart casual dress code, and more generally people never felt too stressed about you taking breaks so long as the work still ended up being done. The people were also as a whole quite nice and friendly, and the infrequent battles with LARP weapons in the background only added to this atmosphere

The system seemed fairly well organised overall. I was promptly followed up after my previous internship asking if I wanted to return and organising interim dates with me. Shortly before my internship I received an informative email from my manager, telling me appropriate information for my first day. There were also frequent intern events organised, such as regular free pub drinks.

I am currently unsure if I want to go into software development as a career. However, Metaswitch definitely created a very compelling advertisement for it. I definitely left with the impression that Metaswitch is a place where I would enjoy working as a career, and I intend to return for future internships, and I know that if I do decide to go into software development it will be top of my list for places to apply to.

Yes, there were many activities organised outside of work. There were regular pub drinks, whenever someone joined or left, which allowed us to get to know other interns and employees better in a more informal setting. There was also the extremely enjoyable "Vacathon", a 3 day intern hackathon. There were also numerous clubs and societies organised by employees during lunch and after work, for a variety of sports but also beyond, such as bridge or board games