Electronics Engineering intern Review

Meeting with project team, and carrying out roles that are required regarding hardware electronics. This can range from design tasks with schematic/ layout design tools to test engineering developing hardware. Documentation is required, which is formal and is reviewed by experienced engineers on my team. Communication amongst team occurs via teams and emails, with teams meetings of sub-teams and larger team occurring regularly throughout the week. Typically responsibility comes in the form of completing a task in the areas described above alongside the formal documentation of said task, after which this is reviewed. After review comments are addressed, this is lodged in the system.

I have learned key technical skills in the PCB hardware design process, including schematic tools usage, layout tools usage, test software tools skills and a general understanding of the design flow in a large company. My task management skills were also expanded as I was communicating with various teams across projects and managing work with different priorities and time frames. My interpersonal skills also developed as I worked with a diverse range of multidisciplinary skills and I learned to communicate problems to engineers of different technical backgrounds to myself

I was given responsibilities and dependencies from multiple projects simultaneously across my placement. The technical work I did ranged from proof of concept work for testing to hardware development and documentation which was essential for multiple teams of the project to move forward. The level of responsibility was very high as the teams were directly impacted by my work and its quality. I was able to adapt to changing needs and requirements from the team to successfully iterate to high quality deliverables.

With regards to technical support and guidance, my experience varied as most people I worked with were very willing to provide support frequently and for as long as I needed. They would also be happy to find suitable resources for me to use to train, and would communicate with me on how I found the training. Very few were less willing to provide support and guidance and were very resisting to giving time for support.

The company is diverse and the site itself is very good. I enjoyed working in the main building of the site. It is very easy to interact with other colleagues across different projects and get to know what was happening in the wider business. There were lots of fun and interesting volunteering opportunities to get involved in and no shortage of interesting opportunities throughout the year. There were some diversity initiatives on site as well.

I really enjoyed lots of aspects of my placement, from learning new skills to meeting new people. I really enjoyed the technical aspects I was involved in and being able to claim ownership over contributions to projects. There was definitely some stressful periods with technical issues and deadlines, but almost always there was support and mentorship available to guide me through and get to the end points. Many team members were friendly and engaging, and colleagues around the work place were great to talk to and learn from

Yes

Make sure you prepare for the technical aspects of your discipline for the interview and the role in general. Have an open mind to how much your work will relate to your education, as there is crossover but the specific skills you will learn will be more role specific. I would have loved to have known more about the design process at big companies for electronics, and how formal documenting works before I started so I could understand what my regular and daily responsibilities would be