Software Engineering Itern Review

I enjoyed the internship experience a lot. It gave me an amazing insight into how a successful company in the IT industry should operate and what they should focus on in order to achieve everything in a pragmatic way. It also gave me the opportunity to improve my programming skills to a whole new level.

I felt like I am an important part of my team as they gave me the chance to work on the most performance critical modules of the new service that they were building. I also had the chance to work on a sales analysis tool which is supposed to help increase the revenue of the company.

My mentor was always there for me, answering even the simplest questions I had. I had to deal with a lot of legacy code and technologies, so this assistance was vital not to hinder my performance. The rest of the team was also really helpful being able to clarify any requirements they put for my projects.

Generally my whole internship was quite balanced in terms of workload. I always had time for taking shorts breaks. I was never pressured for time and the deadlines I had were quite relaxed. Even though my last project was managed by a different team and their deadlines were quite tight. It was a good change so I did not mind.

As I mentioned my team gave me the opportunity to work on some of the most performance critical modules for the service they were working on. Also at some points I was given access to a production database and even managed to limit the access to it for 2 hours, so the level of responsibility given was quite high.

I had the chance on working on a Machine Learning tool to predict certain classes based on historical information. This year at university I am taking a Machine Learning course so the experience from my internship will definitely come really useful for my exams and studies. Also my programming skills got improved which are most important for the career path I am following.

The general atmosphere in the office was quite relaxed. I really liked how everybody is sitting at the same desk. My boss, my boss's boss and his boss were literally sitting right next to me and having the same machine as mine. This feeling of equality was definitely something you do not get with other companies. Also in the pantry you get to see people from all different departments, which allows you to have a chat on various topics.

The internship was not that greatly organised. When I reached they did not get all the correct permissions setup and also the project that I was going to work out was not clearly chosen yet. This caused my first two weeks to not be exactly filled with a lot of work and mostly waiting for permissions and clarifications.

They invested a lot. There were so many different tech talks, meet-ups, "lunch-and-learns" and other similar events. They definitely wanted to teach us more so that we are better at our work duties and deliver better code. Apart from this there were many social events with catering provided and other entertainments.

They already me and offer and I am probably going to take it. The company is amazing and the people you work with are quite relaxed and really professional. I do not see a reason why not to. Also the challenges they are facing in terms of Computer Science are quite hard, so the experience you get is quite good.

Definitely. The pantry was serving as a big social hub. There you could meet people from all departments and have a chat on so many different topics. It was a good change from my team. Also there were so many social events like the Summer Picnic and other where you can meet almost everybody.

The company is situated in one of the most expensive areas in London, so socialising was definitely on the pricey side. However, if you travel 20 minutes either north or east you will get cheap nice places where socialising is not a problem. Even though from time to time it is nice to splurge on even in the City.

The areas where the company is situated is mostly businesses and office building so the night life is not present there. However, a lot of night life hubs are just 15-20 min tube ride away so that was never an issue. Based on your preferences you can even choose where to got and nothing is too far.

Yup there was a volunteering team within the company which organized a lot of interesting visits to different places, e.g. British Red Cross events, Kew Gardens for helping with the gardening, Rebuilding a World War II Veterans house, etc. There was a company sponsored gym and many other social events.