Technology Analyst Review

I fully enjoyed my internship at Bank of America Merill Lynch. The work was challenging and interesting but the most rewarding part was exploring other teams and other aspects of an Investment Bank outside of Technology. Spending time with Sales, Trading and electronic trading was insightful and rewarding as it gave me perspective on where and how my software development was used by clients.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. My team mates in particular were very welcoming, educational and were always happy to answer my questions. Once you start producing work and development that actually impacts and helps the workflow of the team you begin to feel valued and appreciated.

There is plenty of support and guidance, I was fortunate enough to have a manager with previous business and client facing experience which enabled me to explore the other aspects of the bank. Guidance and support is not only presented by management and supervisors, the rest of the team and other employees also present themselves for this role.

You're as busy as you want to be. Your team will either set you a series of short tasks to perform or a project spanning the length of the internship. This will keep you reasonably busy but if you choose to spend time shadowing and exploring other roles inside the bank you become extremely busy, and that's what it's all about.

A fair amount of responsibility. Obviously as an intern you are fresh faced and inexperienced and to be given a large amount of responsibility straight away would lead to chaos. But at the same time you are left to your own devices to develop your own project which, once completed, will have real clients, execute with live data and be submitted to production, so that comes with a large amount of responsibility.

The programming and technical skills I have developed will assist me with my studies, but not to a significant extent. The main skills and training I will carry with me in to the final year of my degree and beyond tie in to professionalism, focus and business. These three are invaluable and you are developing them constantly during the internship.

I was fortunate enough to experience two locations as FICC Technology got moved halfway through my internship. I began my internship on the trade floor, the atmosphere was exciting, loud, expectant and intense. I spend the second half of my internship, following the move, on the research floor. This was much quieter and dominated by software developers. This atmosphere was tailored towards productivity and keeping technology in one place to collate knowledge.

The level of organisation was perfect. There was not too much so that it would feel overbearing and forced, but there was enough that they set you up with your team, organise frequent networking / social events and then leave you to your own devices to enable you to take what you want from the internship.

There is a large level of investment. An exceptional amount from your team but also from other teams within the Investment Bank who are always happy to take time out of their day to explain their role, introduce you to colleagues and define the focus of their team.

Extremely appealing. Bank of America Merrill Lynch offers an exceptional environment. This environment is produced by the connections and links between teams, throughout my internship I have explored multiple roles outside and inside Technology that fascinate me. There is scope for transition and this opportunity is exciting and rare.

There was a great social scene - sports and drinks after work / on the weekends. Obviously you spend a large amount of your time with interns from within your Line of Bussiness so as a result you get closer to these and lose touch with others.

The internship was based in London so as a result it's expensive. You spend as much as you want to spend, if you're short for money then you'll have to cut back on the number of times you head out for social events during the week but there's still scope for entertainment on a budget.

The close proximity is poor but London offers areas with a great nightlife a short distance away. These can all be easily reached by tube / bus / train etc.

Plenty, HR and the bank offer a variety of these so it's up to you if you want to embrace the activities.