IP Review

Working at Cognito iQ has been fun, rewarding and frustrating. The products are very complex - a year simply is not long enough to learn a product throughout regardless of which team you work in. Towards the end of the placement year I have really started to get to grips with the product, it's just a shame the year is coming to an end. I have had plenty of opportunities to explore different systems and languages while having a laugh with the team. While this has been very fun it can at times be incredibly frustrating with Cognito's agile process.

Everyone in my team was incredibly welcoming and excited to meet me. For the most part, I never felt that I was just an intern during my time - colleagues would take my opinion on board and we would work together to find a solution. There has been plenty of support, help and laughs over the year and I couldn't imagine doing it with a different team of people.

My immediate colleagues were extremely helpful which extended to management, for the most part. If I've ever needed time off or to work elsewhere management have been very supportive of this. However (and I'm sure this is the same in many companies), management can interrupt current work and slow the processes down a lot.

As Cognito follows a loose agile workflow we have bi-weekly sprints where work is divided in the team. This is an opportunity to pick up as much work as I have felt I can accomplish and there is rarely pressure to pick up further work. At times this can slip (tickets not being filled out correctly, as an example) but for the most part it has been great.

I have been given plenty of responsibility during my time at Cognito, though I have also been limited in some areas. For the most part I agree with the amount of responsibility given, though I do think there are some company facing areas that only an experienced developer should be working on. Responsibility is great but it can go downhill very quickly when a mistake has been made.

I have learned a fair amount across different languages and methodologies during my time at Cognito iQ,however a lot of that knowledge is incredibly specialised. At times it felt like I was learning more about Cognito and their product more than anything else, which is not likely to be helpful in the industry.

The atmosphere varied a lot over the year. At times the team would be laughing and joking, but when management put pressure on the atmosphere turns sour. Couple that with staff leaving on a frequent basis and you have a very fragile environment. For the most part things were fine but when they crashed, they crashed hard.

There was little training other than reading wiki pages or reading old code - which is not the way to train a dev. The first month or two were very slow, moving through code that had not been touched in years and trying to understand it. HR's introduction to the company was great, but past that there was little organisation.

I had little to no opportunities to extra training or earn certificates. It feels as if Cognito wants to train people to work on their products and their products only. The training that I did receive on their products was during ticket work and information was scarce. This is somewhere that the company needs to invest in further.

There is a clear path up the company when working in a normal role. Once you have an understanding of all the different products then it is a breeze - getting to that point is anything but easy. Cognito seem keen to take interns into future roles within the company.

My year of interns were a lot more quiet than previous years. We did not really socialise outside or even inside work - not that it was discouraged, more that the people were more quiet. Previous years of interns have apparently been a lot more active, but that certainly was not the case for us.

Rent was very expensive in Newbury and I was looking forward to each little payment from student finance. Don't choose a placement in Newbury if you are not willing to budget and struggle through the year. Thankfully Cognito do offer a bonus at the end of the first month of work - without this I wouldn't have survived the year.

Newbury has one club and a bunch of pubs and restaurants. It is expensive and not entirely great. This isn't an issue if you are happy with staying in and not going out all the time. This certainly is not the place to go if you're accustomed to nights out in town.

There's a few people within the company that play tennis and the team have been out together a couple of times. Past this there is not much in the way of activities outside of work - this is something the interns could likely organise together though. I would not be too worried about outside activities.