Software Engineer Intern Review

The overall experience on the Capital One internship was truly incredible. I was offered many opportunities to learn from senior engineers, which helped me to grow professionally and personally. I have also met many wonderful peers from the internship scheme and expanded my own network. There was an outstanding amount of effort put into the 10-week internship from the programme team. All activities felt very organised and enjoyable. I was warmly welcomed and every single person I have met was always wonderful to work with.

I was assigned to two teams. One was an already existing team working on a real-world project, which I took part in. This team consisted of already experienced members. At first, this was quite scary, but every single person on the team made me feel welcomed and was always happy to help me out if I got stuck. I was also assigned a personal mentor and buddy, who supported me through the internship. Having direct contact was very helpful as I knew I could reach out to them with anything. Secondly, I was working on a team with other interns, where it was more open and I was supported by two graduates (more experienced people).

My manager was really proactive and was helping me through the whole internship. Even before the start date, I had a first session where I was welcomed to the programme and we discussed my expectations. Having talked about this beforehand made it easier for me to understand my job and place at Capital One. Once the internship started we scheduled weekly catchup where we informally talked about my goals and progress. This really improved my experience overall as I always knew what to focus on. Overall management was incredible!

Every day there was a task for me to pick up. This meant that I always had work to do. There were times when I felt a little overwhelmed, especially in the first week or two, when most training was taking place. Despite the high demand I was never too stressed out. The support I received from other interns and colleagues was outstanding. What I also enjoyed was the variety of tasks I could work on.

I was working on two projects during my internship. The first one was a real-world in production project with experienced engineers. In this project, I was given a lot of responsibility in rebuilding a component of a website. I was in touch with designers, other engineers and also the product owner to discuss the changes. At the same time, this project was prearranged and I was loosely following a plan that was created for me. The second project I worked on was more open as I worked with other interns and graduate programme employees. There was more freedom, but also a responsibility to be taken.

There was a large number of transferable skills that I have gathered during the internship. I received training not only on technical topics but also on the business, market, company products and even the structure of Capital One. I have also improved a lot of my soft skills as I could practice workplace communication and also work on presentations for different people around the business. This has given me more confidence in my future work and studies. Additionally, I got hands-on experience with new programming languages, tools and also the cloud.

The internship was held online and therefore the atmosphere was quite strange in the beginning. There was an obvious time needed for all the itnerns to adjust. After a week when I got used to the new environment, it was quite natural to work with all colluegues. Overall, the atmosphere is really friendly and collaborative. It is also fun. There is a lot of effort put into making sure that there is a right balance between work and home as this could be especially difficult in a virtual setting.

It was incredibly well organised. First few weeks were dedicated to meeting all the people and training. This allowed for an easy transition into the teams and workplace. Throughout the internship, there were multiple events scheduled for the interns to have fun, learn together and socialise. The programme team made sure all issues were resolved super quickly. I was working from outside the UK, which I thought would be an issue, but the team made sure I never felt out of place and had access to all resources.

I have received an incredible amount of training. I was shown the structure of the company, how the market looks like and even introduced to many senior staff members. There was a lot of time investment from all employes to show the interns what it means to work for Capital One. We also got access to multiple online learning platforms to allows for further technical development. The best part was learning from experienced engineers which really pushed me hard to work on myself.

There were multiple occasions when the topic of employment prospects was discussed with many people in different positions. There is an outstanding amount of career prospect opportunities. A lot of emphases is put on the graduate scheme, where people can rotate around different teams to find what they enjoy working on. At the end of the internship, Capital One gives out offers for the graduate schemes if the candidate meets the requirements through the internship. This is a really well-organised infrastructure and something that can be continuously discussed with managers.

A community of interns was being continuously built from day one. This included daily informal meet ups to start off and end the day, where we could informally talk to each other. There were many social events planned during the internship such us quizzes, games, team building activities etc. Additionally, there is an organisation for all employees on the graduate scheme, which provided multiple additional activities for us to join. There were also awards presented to acknowledge the good work people put in, which was a lot of fun.

As this was all remote I can't comment on this specific situation. There are two offices of Capital One. First one is in Nottingham, which is the main headquarters. It offers a big office and diverse social life. It is also quite cheap. The second office is located in London. Unfortunatelly, due to the pandemic I could not visit it. Talking to my colleagues I found out that the office is smaller than the one in Nottingham, but also modern and nice to work in. Socialising in London is definitely great as it is a large diverse city.

As this was all remote I can't comment on this specific situation. I studied at Nottingham and spend quite some time there. From my experience, the city is really social with many activities to do with friends. There are multiple clubs in the city centre, which are generally packed with students. Pubs, restaurants and other nightlife places can be found at multiple locations around the city. Overall, the night experience is quite diverse and enjoyable for anybody.

The internship programme team made sure that we also have some fun during our experience with Capital One. There were numerous activities scheduled during the day, but also outside of work. As this was virtual all activities were held online. There were activities such as pub quizzes, informal chats, escape rooms and many more. During a normal in person internship Capital One offers a larger range of outside work activities within the city. I think the team made an incredible job of keeping us engaged even during this strange situation.