Software Engineer Program Summer Intern Review

Summer Intern Junior Software Developer: Daily stand-up/scrum meeting working following a weekly sprint agile development methodology. Full stack development using Fast API, sqlalchemy and pydantic for back-end server side web applications with front-end development built using React. Developed new digital platforms to enhance usability and client experiences for lines of business and project owners. Gathering design requirements from senior leaders and populating a backlog to be used during sprint planning. Designing wireframes and sequence diagrams for user stories and allowing test-driven design to direct our development strategy and influence testing user flow.

I previously had very little experience with UI design and this internship has given me the opportunity to become proficient in React. Furthermore I has never before used object-relational Mappers to interact with relational SQL databases and the framework provided at the start of the internship allow me the opportunity to explore this different method of database interaction. CI/CD using Jenkins and Spinnaker with a blue/green deployment strategy to provide resilient and stable products. Engineering solutions to enhance reporting services that support diverse and critical businesses. Designing innovative customer-facing user experience that implement authentication techniques to protect back-end services.

Taken ownership of the entire code-base for new software application. While this portal relies on existing tools the junior developers were entirely responsible for integration with the existing tool as well as deployment and testing for the new project. Changes to the code-base were evaluated by graduate technologist and approved following code reviews to check coverage and completeness of testing for functional and UI components. Deployment was another area that was new to me, and allowed me to gain first hand experience with open source tools such as Spinnaker to create resilient instances of our application using a global load balancer in the private cloud. We were responsible for ensuring responsive web design and usability of our application.

Support from both graduates and associates in reviewing the code and setting up the deployment pipeline. Learned a varied and detailed amount from their shared expertise and came away from the internship far more knowledgeable and capable then when I set out. Daily stand-ups were arranged each morning with our manager to discuss progress and the focus going forward. More in-depth planning and retrospective sprint meeting were held each week to discuss what went well and any improvements that could be made in term of how we were working as a team. These planning meeting also allowed us to set the scope of work to be completed in the next sprint and to discuss any changes in term of direction of the project.

For the technologist at the firm weekly network events were arranged which incorporated other internship programs to allow for a wider interactions between different groups. Midway through the internship all interns took part in a corporate responsibility event day which involved going out completing social initiatives to improve the local community. Business resource groups are available to all members of the employee community. These groups foster leadership and networking opportunities and advance the firm’s commitment to diversity and community involvement. These often involved hearing from panels of guest speakers to discuss and share their experiences.

While the onboarding process took a little time to get setup and working on our assigned project. After these initial tasks were completed and we started the project work there was very little that I found unenjoyable about the internship experience. The people I interacted with were engaging and well placed to provide the technical and business knowledge required to excel in our project. All the other interns were incredible nice and very sociable and there were often opportunities to arrange social activities outside of work. The internship has provided me with an array of new skills and requisite knowledge to do well in my future career.

Yes

Get your application in early, many of the internship offers are considered before the major technology firms are even open to apply for. Don't be caught out and have a covering letter and up to date CV ready to go. Consider applying for the Technology Spring Insight week which gives a rather good overview of the firms lines of business which may spark you interest and direct your application to a particular area of interest. Participate in the Code for Good hackathon. This was my route onto the software engineering internship and meant that I did not have to attend Assessment Centers or Final Interviews. Consider you areas of expertise and those which you would like to explore further. There will be a survey sent around to gauge your level of knowledge in general areas of computer science and ability with different software stacks. Also review the lines of business and what each is responsible for as you will be able to indicate a preference through this survey.