Software Development Intern Review

This was an amazing internship at an amazing company. Considering the internship took place online this year because of the pandemic, I had gone into the internship thinking that maybe it won't be as good as it ordinarily would be. This was completely wrong. The amount of effort put into making the 10 weeks great was incredible. The interns were certainly not an after thought, and not only did I have a great time but I learnt an awful lot.

The first thing you can tell is that interns are treated like any other member of the company. They are not seen as uni students who probably do not know as much as the other employees, but as valuable assets that can add some real value to the company. Not once did my colleagues make me feel as though they didn't value what I was contributing, and this was made clear through the weekly catch-up session with members of my team.

For the capital one internship each intern is allocated to a team, with your manager providing an awful lot of guidance throughout the 10 weeks. You are then also given a mentor - a member of the team who is there to guide you on your project and help you out along the way. You are also then allocated a buddy - another member of your team who is there more as a friend, to help you get settled in and feel comfortable. All in all the support was incredible.

For the most part the balance was very good. Our time was usually split between two projects that we were supposed to split out time between. I think this was great because it meant there was always something to be working on and if you ever got stuck or bored with one project you could move on to the other. The only slight issue was in the first 2 weeks we had a lot of zoom calls. Not sure if this was avoidable due to the nature of the online internship but at time was draining.

During my internship I had a team project to complete and then a project that all the interns work on every year. For the later project you are given complete ownership of this massive piece of code. Only grads and interns work on it and at the end of the internship you present back to all the stakeholders - so in terms of responsibility there was a lot there. For my individual project within my team I was also given a lot of responsibility. I was provided with a project that had been on teams backlog and so this was a real problem that had needed fixing.

Firstly the internship has developed my technical skills massively. I learnt about an awful lot of different technologies and now have a much better grasp as to what software engineering within the workplace look like. This will be valuable for my last year at university where I will try and build on what I've learnt, but also for working life beyond that where I will try to use these skills to get the most out of any experience.

Although we weren't actually in the office because of the pandemic, I felt like the atmosphere definitely translated. Zoom sessions where very relaxed and someone was always laughing in one meeting or another. The internship programme team organised a lot of fun events like murder mysteries and work from home games which really helped to keep us engaged and talking to the other interns. Apart from missing out on small interactions and actually seeing people in person, I feel like the team did a great job of recreating the office atmosphere virtually.

I think the thing that shocked me most about this internship was how well organised it was. The ease of transitioning into a remote workplace was truly a testament to the amount of effort put in by the organisers, and if you had told me they run a remote internship every year I would believe you. From the moment we started and received our schedule for the coming weeks you could tell the lengths the team had gone to to ensure that we had just as good an experience as we would do in-office.

Again the company spares no effort when it comes to the interns. It truly feels as though you are valued as much as anyone else - and this is clear through the amount of time and resources they invest. The amount of technical training sessions and soft skill workshops prove this. Similarly the fact that each intern is given a real, meaningful project that will actually be used within the company, to not only push the intern but to give them a sense of what they might be working on if they come back for a grad placement show this.

The future employment prospects within the organisation are very appealing. The company extends grad scheme placements to a number of their interns and this is a very exciting prospect. Again it seems as something designed to nurture talent and invest in employees. The idea of working with company in the office is extremely appealing - because if a remote environment was this good I can only imagine what being at London in the office might be like.

Again this is a difficult question seeing as the internship was remote. But again the intern team put in a lot of effort to try and recreate the social environment. We had weekly work from home games sessions where competed against other interns in a friendly environment. Murder mystery and escape room type events were organised - and there were sessions scheduled in every day for interns to chat if they wanted to have a talk.

Cheap as chips because it was remote! This meant that I really didn't have to spend anything because I was living at home. Socialising cost nothing because there wasn't really any socialising beyond the laptop screen. If the internship were to take place in London as usual I would suspect that socialising may be slightly expensive - but the cost of living wouldn't since I would still be working from home - however would have the commute.

Although the internship is remote and there is currently no nightlife due to the pandemic we are experiencing, I've given this question a 10 because I've experienced the London nightlife before and it is awesome. I often travelled up to central London on nights out because the nightlife at home is pitiful. London is filled with bars and clubs and I'm sure that if we were in-office the interns would have had many an outing.

Although the internship was online there was actually a surprising amount to get involved with. The company ran things like 'coder events' to teach interested individuals about coding and would often ask for volunteers to help with events like these. I guess one of the things we missed out on were getting involved with sports and stuff like that - as well as their famous summer fest type activities - although this is obviously through no fault of the company.