Software Development Internship Review

I really enjoyed my remote internship with Softwire, and it seemed like they prioritised my enjoyment of the 8 weeks I had with them. They not only provided a good structure for work from the start, they also provided a solid platform on which to meet other interns and current staff members socially. If I did have any complaints about how it was going I felt I could have brought them up either with my intern trainer or my line manager.

I felt like I was having an impact on what I was working on as Softwire gave me the opportunity to collaborate on an actual project. This meant the work we were doing was being used and seen by the core team regularly and they would ask questions about what we had added. This was a real boost to morale as it showed us the work we were doing was being noticed and appreciated by the team.

As Softwire gave me 2 ports of call - my intern trainer and my line manager - if I needed support on anything, it meant that I was never left feeling lost. I never felt like I couldn't talk to either of them about a problem, and my line manager always checked in weekly - if not more - to make sure I was doing okay. Overall I cannot think of any other guidance I needed during my time there.

My trainer had set up morning stand-ups so the start of our workday was well organised and we could talk about what should be done during the workday. As us interns were paired up daily, it meant that we could help on other people's tickets if we were at a stopping point with our own. There were no days where I was sat around waiting for things to do, but I also never felt like I had so much to do I couldn't stop for breaks.

During the training - for the first two weeks - we were given the responsibility of learning anything new that came up and completing the tasks given by the trainer. I then got the opportunity to work on a project that had been going for a few months already, which seemed like a lot of responsibility from the offset. This trend continued, and I felt like my work was quite independent with the trainer reviewing work before adding it to the project.

The internship taught me not only technical skills, but also a lot of soft skills. The entire internship had me working in a team, and pairing with another team member almost everyday meant that my collaborative working skills developed hugely. Working with so many new technologies was a great way to practice learning new coding languages and frameworks. As most of the technologies were new to me it means that I can take these, together with the soft skills, to whatever I pursue next.

The atmosphere was quite casual, which meant it was easy to talk to superiors or people on your project team without feeling anxious in any way. Social time was set aside specifically so that we weren't overworking, as the remote nature of the internship meant that we might not have gauged how long we should be working. Overall I would say that it was the right balance of fun and seriousness when work had to be done.

I think the entire internship was very well organised, and especially as this is the first year of remote internships I think it went very smoothly. They sent me a company laptop before I started and I never had to worry about any of the logistics as it was handled by them. I was very impressed with how the intern system seemed to work, and even though it was remote I felt like they had been doing it for years this way.

As the internship started with 2 weeks of technical training it felt from the very start that the company were set on making sure you came out of the internship with skills and knowledge you didn't come in with. With this and the benefits that came with the internship - such as a budget for morale events - it felt like the company were invested in what I was doing and appreciated the work I put in.

There were morale events almost daily it seemed, with morale officers reminding everyone what was happening that day. It could be anything from tabletop and online games to watching an episode of something on Netflix weekly. If you had some spare time after work it was easy to find other people who were the same. There were also many opportunities to suggest morale events you think would work well, if you thought there was something missing that people would enjoy.