Voice Engineer Review

Great place to work, great people who make it a fun environment. Many opportunities for social events and clubs. Nomura has a good working environment.

My team were very welcoming and got me involved immeadiately. From very early on I felt I was an essential member of the team and the work I was doing was meaningful.

My manager and colleagues in the team couldn't have done more to help me. They always made time to teach and guide me. Any problems related to the work or outside of work, they made themselves available to help.

It is always busy, but some days were busier than others. I never felt like I couldn't handle the workload. Especially with COVID-19, the workload drastically increased but the team were there to support me and I didn't feel overwhealmed at any point. At the same time, I didn't feel I was sitting there doing nothing, there was always something to do.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility. I was trusted to conduct morining checks and cover shifts on my own. Members of the team were always contactable during these times. I was trusted to work on the systems without supervision.

I learned a lot about Cisco and general knowledge about networks, especially telephony. Doing a Computer Science degree, this does play a part in my studies but not a massive part. Beyond my degree I learned a lot about the corporate environment and how technology plays a vital role in a business.

Different floors had different atmospheres. Due to the nature of my role I was often moving around the building a lot. The floor with my desk wasn't too quiet and you could have a bit of banter as long as you got the work done. Generally it was a good atmosphere and everyone was friendly.

Nomura was very organised and had evereything in place. There was good communication between the interns and the HR people who looked after us. There was regular reports that our managers made about us on our progress. These were helpful for our own self development. The interview and "on-boarding" was carried out very effectively.

I was given resources to learn the fundementals of Cisco Networking and access to a website called PluralSight. PluralSight has thousands of different resources available from programming to networking so this was very useful. The company also put on sessions for us to learn more about the business and different areas of technology.

From what I've observed they take on interns to find people to hire. They want to develop you so that they can employ you. You need to put the work in and if you are good at what you do, being re-hired looks promising. However, like with everything, there has to be the budget for you.

There is a very good social scene. Being located in Central London means there is no shortage in bars. The group of placement students would often go to bars or host parties after work or on weekends. This made for a very good social life during the placement. There is also a bar that opens in the summer on the roof of the building overlooking the Thames and London.

I live very close to Central London anyway so cost of living was not a problem but I know renting anywhere near Central London is extremely expensive! Socialising in London is always going to be expensive; a £6 pint is common, but you don't need to go too far out and the prices will start to drop.

The nightlife is pretty good. Nomura is in the center of the city. It takes hardly any time at all to get to areas like Shoreditch or SoHo. You can't get much better of a location for the "London" nightlife. Even in the immediate surrounding area there is a very wide choice of pubs and bars.

Nomura has many different opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. They are continuously encouraging you to join clubs and charity events on their intranet. Examples include a football club, rock-climbing, public speaking club and charity quizzes. Also many teams will do stuff among themselves such as charity events or social events.