Software Engineering Intern Review

I was in a group with a small number of other Software Engineering Interns, under a manager from one of NatWest's SE teams. Each day there is a morning and afternoon standup to discuss our work. Oversight was very limited - we were broadly left to spin our wheels for the majority of the internship.

My technical skills were unfortunately not well used in this role. To the extent that any skills were developed, they were organisational (Agile ways of working, coordination with other interns etc).

We had the opportunity to volunteer for some internals projects, wherein we as interns would govern ourselves and the development of the project. In this voluntary projects we were completely responsible, and this was very rewarding. However, in our placement work, it felt very much like we were shielded from anything "real".

The work was not challenging, so support was not generally required, but I am confident that if it were needed I could have reached out to many of my colleagues at the bank and would have received help without complaint.

The Grad Placement people all seemed quite enthusiastic about their work, which was great to see. As you get more senior, naturally people are less energetic, but nowhere in the company was any sense of dourness or dissatisfaction.

I very much enjoyed meeting and working with my colleagues (other interns plus grads), and found the work done in the voluntary projects engaging. Unfortunately, the dullness of the placement work my team was assigned reduced my job satisfaction quite significantly.

No

Regarding the Software Engineering programme specifically, be aware that NatWest goes out of their way to hire people from less-technical or entirely untechnical backgrounds. This provides a much greater diversity amongst colleagues, but unfortunately also means that the company cannot assign challenging technical work to interns, as a significant number could not take it on.