Technology Analyst Review

Like any job there are ups and downs but it was a hugely valuable experience which I am extremely grateful for! By the end of my year I was a core member of the team with many responsibilities and many people depending on me. Large parts of the core project code base were written by me and I committed a large amount of work to production. I was not treated like an intern, I was treated like a full time employee.

I felt like a critical part of the team!

Management were very keen to help and advise, and were easily accessible. Even though the team was always very busy time was still made to support me and help me to become a strong member of the team.

If you wanted more work you could always get it. I enjoy working hard and like to put 100% in, I was stretched sufficiently and was able to keep busy all day every day with critical work.

As I mentioned in previous comments, my work was on core systems critical to the business, often with tight deadlines.

I learned a huge amount about software development, working with large systems, working with other people's code etc. I would say the most important thing I learned is how to deal with people and manage expectations, dealing with quickly changing priorities whilst still keeping to deadlines.

People were friendly and chatty, there were plenty of team socials and opportunities to network, even with management. At Barclays you are assigned a desktop and a fixed location in the office so you spend alot of time around the same people, giving you plenty of time to network with them.

In the summer we attended the same socials as the summer interns, so every week there was an activity and a chance to make friends with other interns. After the summer there were no more socials but this is because there were only a handful of year interns in my cohort. For the rest of the year you become more integrated with your team and socialise much more with them.

I attended a weeks training at the start which provided an insight into the world of investment banking. I was given reading material by my team and my team put me on a course for fixed income mathematics. Also there were opportunities to arrange MD/director meetings to gain an insight into the company and the people that run it, as well as talks from high level executives.

I have accepted an offer for the graduate program in 2013.

Yes I made several friends and we regularly socialised outside of work; even now the internship is over we still meet up.

Not cheap obviously, since it is London, but we could afford to go out to nice places without worrying about finances too much. Canary Wharf itself is fairly reasponable price wise in pubs.

Pubs are excellent in canary wharf but no night life really beyond 12. Of course you can very easily take the tube somewhere else to a club. Also on weekends canary wharf pubs are very quiet.

Many oppertunities during the summer part of the internship (when we were on the same program as summer interns) including: dragon boat racing, volunteering, activity/sports day.