Software Engineer Associate Review

The company itself is great as there are many different projects out there that make use of different skills so there is definitely a wide variety of roles. However as an intern you will most likely be given your first role and if your lucky it wont be a boring one. If you are unlucky and get a boring role such as testing for example you might find it difficult to switch to a new project outside of testing as your specialty has now been set based on your first project. This wouldn't normally be a problem for an experienced hire but for an intern with little to no previous experience you will rely on your first project to join other new project and it could be difficult getting a role that's outside of your specialty and you could end up with the same role (on different projects) throughout the placement.

You are very valued by your colleagues and this is made very clear, in fact most of your colleagues wont even know or realize that you are an intern and will treat you like a a proper permanent employee. On some days you can really feel the pressure as you easily be given real impactful responsibilities.

You are given as much support as you need. At the start of the placement there will be an induction that will introduce you with a bunch of useful people to contact if you need anything in general. You are also assigned a career counselor who you can go to for any career based advice. For technical or project help you can always rely on your colleagues and your manager to help out as team work is heavily encouraged.

This really depends on the project and at what stage the project is at. On my first project we were near the end of the project life cycle and we were behind schedule which meant a lot of overtime and even weekend work was required to catch up. it was not uncommon for people to leave work at 7-8PM on a daily bases and some days this could even be 9-10 PM. As you can imagine it was a nightmare. However on my second project it was actually quite relaxed and i was able to leave the office around 5PM each day.

You are given as much responsibility as you can handle, if you feel like you can do more you can do some by discussing it with your manager. In fact if you work hard and it shows you can be asked to take on more responsibilities as currently i'm working with another intern who is pretty much a workaholic who has been sent to Thailand to do some work on there.

When you start working in the real industry you will quickly realize that most of the things taught to you only play a small part the whole scheme of things. Each project uses different technology and different project management techniques that you can only really learn by working on the job. This is true Especially the non-technical skills, however regarding technical skills again you will be exposed to many different technologies, some you haven't even heard of and these you can only learn from other experienced colleagues (and perhaps even the internet if applicable)

This again depends on the project that you are on, my first project we had a fruit box delivered to the office for the team twice a week and we had a social outing for the entire team at least once a week and also a free lunch with the team also once a week especially since this project was very stressful due to the fact that we were behind schedule and a lot of work had to be done so this (kind of) remedied the problem. On my second project there was a designated snack table where people could bring snacks and leave them for anyone from the team to take. Usually this included chocolates, cakes, cookies and nuts.

There were many opportunities for someone to enroll in a training course as they are always advertised by email and the internal company portal. These training courses are usually free to attend and are great for people that aren't currently unassigned to a project and are "sitting on the bench" for their next role as it gives them something to do with their time.

Most interns are given a job offer at the end of the placement (i would say about 90%), you should be almost guaranteed an offer as long as you listen to your managers and show some effort as they are the ones that will recommend you as a hire at the end.

This again depends heavily on which project you are working on, different projects are based in different locations and you will most likely find yourself working away from home and spending most of your time in a hotel or a temporary apartment. You can of course control where you will be located if you prefer to stay closer to home and decline any roles that are too far away but this could limit you on your options. I have been on 2 projects so far one in Milton Keynes and the other in Slough, there were a couple restaurants and bars in MK but not really that many. However Slough was basically mostly businesses and had almost no social spots.

You get 3 charity days that you can use to volunteer your time for a cause of your choosing.