Software Engineer Review

Enjoyable placement - work was varied and interesting. Worked on 2 long projects in my placement which were delivered to the customer. I feel like I could have got more out of the placement by doing a shorter project and rotations to other departments.

Good team spirit at Thales. Found that I was not only learning while on the job, but I was also able to feed back information I had gained whilst at university too. Plenty of social things happening in the evenings too which helped me meet and get to know all the recent grads.

Some training was given but this was given a bit late in the day. Was thrown in at the deep end but I did manage to work OK - was a great way to learn things fast. Things could have gone more smoothly with a bit more formal training / orientation at the beginning.

Took the same role as any other engineering employee, responsible for making decisions and delivering work regularly. Was a bit busy at some points as deadlines were approaching, but it was manageable - good opportunity to get paid overtime!

In the projects I worked on, I was responsible for implementation which at points meant I had to make decisions that would affect the product, the interfaces and other developers too. Not only did I have deadlines to meet, I was asked to set my own targets, goals and milestones and keep in regular contact with the project managers.

Skills learned at Thales extended way beyond what I learned in the first 2 years of my degree. Both people skills and technical info will be really helpful for my final year. I feel like I've developed a much stronger approach to engineering, but a lot of the technology used is bespoke.

The office environment is a bit plain, but no worse than other places. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a stimulating place to work, but the people are good and very easy to get along with.

Minor glitch at the start, but it didn't affect me too badly. Most of what I needed (email, pc, phone etc) was already in place when I started and I had work I could get on with from the first day. Good orientation, but could have done with more formal training at start.

Big disadvantage was that there weren't many personal development opportunities opened to the interns. I feel that the grads receive a lot of investment from the company and I feel there is a big disparity in the training given to interns

he department I worked in at Thales is taking on a lot of work in future and there are plenty of good opportunities for strong candidates to progress quickly through the company. A few technical/project managers are doing well having not long left university. T

Close to central Manchester, what else can be said?

Got involved in a few STEM / educational activities outside of work with the company. Great fun.