Software Engineer Intern Review

I really enjoyed the internship. It was a positive experience as I learned new things, met new people and it was well paid.

I feel valued, because you are given real tasks that actually matter to the team. My manager thanked me after the completion of the work, which made me feel like I have positively contributed. There are some employees in higher positions, who are not that much concerned with interns, that's why not a perfect score.

My manager was always available to me for questions or to redirect me to the proper sources, which I really appreciated. He even made an extra effort, because it was the summer, so he had holidays planned, but told me I should not worry to call him anyway. This is certainly going the extra mile and that's amazing.

As with any job, it depends a bit on the day or the week. Sometimes I'd be stuck on something and if there is no help available immediately, it'd be a slower day. On the other side, I got a huge task in the final weeks, and it felt like a race with the clock to finish it on time before I leave. I'd say such variations are normal.

It depends team to team, but in my case I was working on my own project within the team’s bigger one. This meant I had a lot of freedom on it, to decide how to design it, structure it etc. This, of course, means responsibility. I think my mentor highly valued me being proactive about it and we collaborated well on it.

For me, it's very important to learn something new in an internship. And I certainly did during my summer in JP Morgan. I worked with new technologies such as React and Redux, and this is obviously something you can apply in any new environment you end up in. So I am quite happy about it.

Coming off from a software engineering background, I would probably prefer something more relaxed. But when you go to work at a bank, you should know you are signing up for a business environment. And this can be quite cool to experience too, to be honest. In the end of the day, it's about personal preference.

I'd say mostly well organised. There were planned events to keep the interns interested, from talks with company seniors to socials at bars. On the minus side, I did get moved around a bit as sometimes you get the desk of someone who is on holiday as it's summer. For me it was not that bad, but for some interns it was often.

I'd say they put good effort into that. There are different sources available for you to learn - for instance, you can get free access to courses about technologies. Furthermore, there was an ongoing competition running for us in the platform Secure Code Warrior, so we can learn about writing secure code.

If you do well in the internship, you have a high chance of being offered a full time grad position. Usually you would continue in the same team, but they send you a questionnaire at some point to check your interests. The salary is competitive and there is a relocation bonus.

Definitely. There are two offices in London, so interns are split between them and for those stuck in the smaller one, I think the situation might be a bit worse. But in Canary Wharf, you'd meet fellow interns around often. Especially during lunch, the canteen is a good place to socialise. And there were the social events as well, two for the duration of the internship.

Quite expensive, but I guess you can't expect anything less in London. To be fair, if you end up in the Canary Wharf office, you can find an affordable place to live nearby as it is zone 2. Lunch is around 8 on average and there is an app that you can use in office for discounts.

Well, London is obviously amazing as there is something for every taste. The problem is places are often far from you and your friends live on different ends of the city, so it's hard to organize and make a plan. This would often mean we couldn't really go out with most of the interns.

JP Morgan offers the so called resource group, where you can meet people with similar interests/background. For instance, groups to support women in the working environment or LGBT colleagues. There are also sports clubs, which is cool. I didn't personally try them, but some friends went to play football every week.