Technology Summer Intern Review

I thought that the virtual program was well structured. Especially appreciated the buddy and manager system where I could get candid answers about first hand experience working at DB. The two projects given to us were challenging in a manageable way. Working remotely felt a little weird at first, but the bank helped us to adjust with lots of virtual engagements such as peer-to-peer networking and senior mentor sessions. However, we were not assigned any existing desk and team tasks.

HR and staffs from the technology division were extremely friendly, always happy to share about their experiences and open to questions. I was glad that the buddy assigned to me had very similar experience (in terms of background and college), which allowed us to connect really quickly. My manager was always enthusiastic to share about his projects and guide me along topics that I was not familiar with. I also felt that the bank values employees' mental health.

Most technical assessments were done in teams, such that we did not feel too daunted with tasks that we were not familiar with. Technical support is also readily available, when many encountered problems setting up and working with the DOD system. HR and my division was keen on helping to resolve these difficulties as soon as possible for us. But the long and complexed administrative process regarding the DOD made things move slower than expected.

For the most part, we had scheduled program throughout the day (training, sharing sessions, mentoring time, etc.). Short breaks were given between each event and lunch breaks were appropriately long. On the last week when we were working intensively on the technical project, lots of self driven time were given, as well as scheduled project time for the teams. So workload definitely scaled up towards the end. My team was working on the project to rather late hours for the last week.

First week were mostly introductory talks and presentation about the company. As such, little responsibility was given other than turning up to the virtual talks. After understanding more about the industry, we were given a research project which lasted about two weeks. The division specific technical project was the most intensive part of the internship. Working with a team of other interns allowed us the the freedom to explore the topics in a variety of different approaches.

Considering that covid regulations scaled up rather quickly, I was impressed and pleased with the internship experience DB provided. Schedules were sent out at least a week ahead (minus some minor changes). I felt that we were given sufficient time for each component of the internship (from self driven studies, divisional talks, to projects and networking). The peer networking sessions were not monitored so I have encountered a few no-shows. Still a good effort overall.

Many self driven modules and platforms were made available during the internship. However, little instruction and guidance was given from HR organisers until prompted. Aside from these graduate level training material, we were also given access to employees' collaborative and training platforms. I thought that the actual scheduled technical training session (conducted by external vendor) was below expectation. They were done rather hurriedly, so many interns had problem catching up on coding languages that we had not learned before.

Throughout the internship, I could see a concerted effort by Deutsche to promote an "engineering culture" and recruit people into its technology division. Future perspective are definitely exciting for the coming 3-5 years, considering the headline collaboration with google cloud and ongoing digital integration initiatives. Employee development would be one of the most appealing component. I (virtually) met with many young employees who are learning from different on job training programmes. However, the number of graduate rotations (2 for most cases) could be a little limiting.

The covid situation made face to face social scene almost inexistent. Some interns organised regional meet ups in areas where covid regulations were less strict. The HR teams took to arrange many laid back sessions for us to interact with each other online. Within the team, everyone felt rather close, as they were often checking up on each other during morning stand up sessions. Social energy is more family like than anything else, which I found to be quite conducive.

We were given access to explore the different activities available. There were quite a few talks on different CSR activities going on (quite a number of them were started by employees). While the non-CSR related activities are mostly for development of professional skills (presentation/public speaking groups, etc.). Most employees seemed to be involved with at least one activity outside of work, as long as they have the free time for it. So opportunities are abundant.