Mr Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at CA, I am fully involved with the team and responsible for delivering work used by customers. The placement has given me exposure to a range of different tools and enabled me to apply and develop the skills learnt on my university course in a real working environment.

At CA you are treated with respect and your opinions are valued. You work closely with the rest of your team to deliver new features and additions to the product. During planning for the forthcoming sprint you have an equal opportunity to volunteer for work and often work closely with the rest of the team to deliver a quality product.

My manager and other supervisors have been extremely helpful and tentative to helping me succeed; including resolving any issues that I have encountered during my placement. An example where my manager has offered support was during the introductory phase to the placement where he set aside a large amount of time to introducing myself and the other engineering intern into the company.

On a daily basis the vast majority of my work is revolved around the design and implementation of new features and additions to the product. The work allocated to you is given an estimate time for completition to help stop you being overloaded with work. However if you do run out of work because of the nature of this work, there is always new tasks for you to get involved in.

Whilst at CA I have been given equal responsibility to the rest of the team of engineers. At the beginning of every sprint (start of new work period) we have an equal opportunity to volunteer for work we have interested in and want to work on for the upcoming fortnight.

The skills and knowledge I have gained have been invaluable and am looking forward to be able to apply the skills learnt from being in a working environment during the final duration of my university course. A particular example of this is a significant proportion of my time here at CA has been working with Oracle databases. Having this knowledge is extremely useful and am looking forward to being able to apply this in my final year.

The atmosphere in the office is relaxed and friendly, the office is located in a great location with amazing facilities. The company has a large emphasis on a good work life balance and offers a variety of actives outside of work, including stem and sporting activities. If you ever need help everyone is more than happy to help you no matter what the problem is.

The placement has been well structured from the start. The initial first couple of days I was given a general introduction to the company, which was followed up by an activity which gave me exposure the product and the different services. The placement has been well organised with bi-weekly meetings with my placement supervisor to make sure that myself and the rest of the interns have no issues.

There have been several opportunity's where the company has given me the chance to develop my skills and get involved in training courses. This includes having the opportunity to get my AWS certification (Amazon Web Services). Further to this once every quarter you have the opportunity to research and progress areas of interest which can be useful to the product.

Currently CA does not offer any kind of grad scheme or job prospects after the placement. However the skills and knowledge gained during the placement have been extremely useful. Having real work experience and working on a live product has given me an insight into the workings of an experienced engineering team.

Outside of work there are several events organised by the company in which placement students can get involved, including socials and evening events. As well on several occasions myself and the other interns have organised events including top golf and other activities in which the other interns could get involved in.

For this placement year I shared accommodation with two other interns currently at CA Technologies which helped reduce the cost of living greatly. In terms of socializing there are plenty of activities to do around the Windsor area including beautiful walks, ice skating and other fun activities. The cost for these activities is very dependent on what you do.

Around Windsor there is a good nightlife scene with plenty of pubs and bars about. As mentioned above having easy access to London means you have got a broad range of evening activities to see and enjoy further out and are never short of somewhere new or interesting to go.

Outside of work there are several events organised by the company in which placement students can get involved with including socials and night time events. As well on several occasions myself and the other interns have organised events including top golf and other activities in which to get involved with.