Systems Administrator Review

Redgate is by far the best place I have worked. Full stop. Admittedly I have only been working for 3 years and had 3 jobs in that time, however, Redgate truly are as relaxed as they say they are. At no point during my internship did I ever feel pressure to get my work done or pressure that I might need to do more work etc which made the internship a much more enjoyable experience than it could have been

I got on with the people in my team really well, from day one when I was initially getting to know them right through to the end of the internship we had a good relationship which meant that we could have a joke when we wanted to or be serious if need be. Everyone around the business were also very helpful whenever I needed help which is really encouraging

I sat next to my manager for the period. So whenever I needed help he was right there next to me, I don't think he minded me bugging him. We also had regular 1 to 1s every fortnight in which we reviewed the work I had been doing and work I wanted to do and sorted out any issues I may have had. We also got to work in a pair on some stuff which was good for my learning. I was however able to work independently when I wanted to

This varied a lot. Initially while I was settling in there was a limited range of things that I could do as I didn't yet understand the way that the company worked. During these times (first and maybe second weeks) there were occasions when I would have very little work that I could do but as I gained more experience I got more and more work to do and as such ended up with a really good balance by midway through the internship

I was really impressed with the freedom that I was given by Redgate. I had the opportunity to run my own project (with a little help from my manager) from the teams list of things to do. This involved getting the research together, costings, speaking to relevant people around the business for feedback etc and was a really great experience to have.

My degree isn't exactly relevant to the internship that I did this summer. However I have learnt a lot about how the IT systems in larger organisations are organised and got the opportunity to further my skills in the areas that I wanted to when I applied for the job. Have the choice of what exactly I wanted to get out of the internship was great and meant that I could make the most of the time there

Relaxed. In the times where I wasn't working hard or particularly concentrating I had a nerf gun to one side and a colleague to shoot somewhere around me, if I didn't feel like starting a nerf war then there was always a quick game of mario kart to get a break from work. I was allowed to manage my time as I liked and no one would care if I spent half an hour chatting on facebook rather than working, because they knew that I would get the work done later. Made the job very enjoyable.

I am happy with how the internship was set up, there were a few hickups along the way but these were minor and probably only relevant to me/my team. I was the first intern that the team had had for a placement, so initially they weren't really sure about how to work with an intern and what sort of things I should be doing, but this all got ironed out fairly quickly.

I was allowed to work on the projects that I thought would be interesting which allowed me to then learn exactly what I wanted to, supported by my manager and team They were perfectly happy for me to waste half a day looking at something that wasn't entirely relevant or really worth doing if it helped me to achieve my goals.

Got asked to go back after 4 weeks, so I'm going back next year to do the internship again and I could see myself working there when I graduate, if they'd have me :)

There were some real characters at Redgate in the interns group, we had a variety of loud and quiet people (what do you expect from a bunch of computer scientists) and initially some people found it hard to get along and talk, I think mainly they were shy. But after a week or two we got going and we were talking a lot and going out for a drink on fridays. I think it's just luck the group that you would get.

I commuted from home as I only live 30 miles away, so I only had the daily expense of 60 miles of fuel for my car. However cambridge is not a cheap city, drinks are a little more expensive than normal however they are in line with the town I live in so it doesn't really phase me. I could imagine some people being shocked at how much a pint is in some of the classier pubs though.

I didn't really go out for nights out often as I was commuting. But there are lots of nice bars around cambridge that you can go to to get some food and a few drinks. There are enough places to go

Redgate have about 20 different clubs that you can join, things from chess to video games, sailing to yoga. Personally I joined the sailing club for the period that I was there. I got to go out on one of my colleagues catamarans a few times over the weekend which was really fun. I remember feeling that it was a bit like Uni with the range of random groups that I could have joined