Watson & Cloud platform technical sales Review

Overall the job was good. The IBM Warwick location itself is not very lively, but the team that I worked in was great. There is tons of support from other IBM'ers when requested. Overall I would do the year again if I was given the choice. The experience of a proper business working environment is not to be taken lightly.

In the team that I was the atmosphere was excellent. The team helped me get comfortable quick and were supportive for the duration of my placement. People are serious when it comes to work, but have a good time joking and communicating when there is downtime. have I think this is one of the best parts of my year in industry.

My manager while strict was very fair and constructive in his feedback over the year. My senior teammates were excellent in both teaching the needed skills, both technical and business and providing excellent feedback that always helped me further myself. One can also easily get support from IBM'ers around the globe to help with anything.

The position I am in doesn't have a set workload but depends on client requests - which in term means that there are always periods of not a lot of work but just as well there are days where you have to scramble to finish everything on time. IBM has a program with a lot of learning online that one can use when not busy.

While in my placement I was working on real client opportunities and while all of my work was peer reviewed I had the experience of doing real work that was given to clients and made a real impact on the business. This placement is an excellent opportunity to have responsibility in an big company.

I am still in my placement, but the skills that IBM gives you in my opinion are excellent for continuing your studies. We were required to have great time management and communication skills - I personally am now much better in sitting down and doing a lot of work on one go.

The atmosphere was excellent. people are serious when talking about work but the general atmosphere of the office is not very strict. We have dress down Fridays but generally the dress code is official. The biggest drawback of the Warwick office is that it is a very big office and a lot of people work from home, so some days its not very busy.

The work placement starts with a 2 day induction on general IBM matters that is the same for all interns. After that every interns handover is done by the previous interns. This can be hit or miss. There is a set structure of several reviews with people assigned to us at the start (Early proffesional manager EPM), that happen at 3, 6 and 12 months. We also have to fill in a journal that could do with some improvement in the structure.

All IBM'ers have access to IBM internal education. This is a big asset for people who want to develop themselves. There is years of education on all aspects of the business for free online. Lunch and learn sessions are also common where one can attend and get educated by an IBM'er with experience.

Future employment prospects are numerous and well paid. IBM also takes great care to match you properly with a career path that will be suitable for you. While this is nice IBM is a huge company with many sub-sections, but one can only apply to 1 at a time (understandable) but once they decline, you have to wait 12 months from the date of decline to apply - that means that if you would like to apply to a business role and a technical role that is impossible in a 18 maybe even a 24 month period.

The Warwick office as I said before is not the most busy one, and in my year here there were 7 interns. We were a good group and went out a lot but this will depend on the current interns and their number might go down in the future. I think its good but it would have been great if there were more interns in the office.

The choice is between living in Leaminghton Spa and Warwick, For a single room (en suite) they are both expensive - Leighton more so, but if you can find people to house-share you can go down to £350 or so per person per month. Leaminghton Spa en suite is £600 (bills included) but is a better location for going out (no clubs in Warwick).

In Warwick the nightlife is limited to very few clubs and mainly pubs (spoons is always a good choice) but if you want to go to a proper nightclub - go to Leaminghton. There are a lot of students from Warwick university that go to Leaminghton. If you value this it might be a good idea to live in Leaminghton not in Warwick

IBM encourages employees to do giveback - in the form of presentations, helping out in events, helping work experience students etc. A lot of the giveback opportunities are not Warwick based so it might involve some traveling around (Southbank, etc.) to do some of them , but overall it's good.