Intern Review

I really enjoyed the experience - I learned a huge amount about software development, and I found the work really stimulating. I ended up working on a variety of projects, which was both challenging and interesting, and it exposed me to a lot of new programming languages and different structures of projects.

I definitely felt the company valued me being there, especially towards the end when I began working on a real customer project and was involved in meetings between the people working on the project and the managers. People also seemed genuinely interested in the work I was doing when they would come to help.

There was plenty of guidance - whenever I had a question there were always plenty of people happy to help, and I was also working with another intern so we discussed things with each other. The people looking after us would come and check to make sure we were okay every so often if we hadn't asked anything in a while - not too often though - it was good that we had the opportunity to try and figure out things ourselves before asking for help!

Hugely - I now feel I have a starting point to go and learn through contributing to open source projects, as opposed to before when these things always seemed out of reach. I learned a lot about principles of coding, as well as how to write tests. Away from the coding side, I was also able to see how teams worked together within the company, and how customers were managed.

This wasn't an official internship and was both quite short and a last minute thing, so there wasn't a huge amount of structure. There was a bit of disorganization at the start, since the person setting up our projects unexpectedly had to do some extra work on a project over the first couple of days. After this though, when we were given a project and some code, things became a lot more interesting and I think we also learned much faster through working on an actual project. Days themselves were structured with standups at the start to discuss the work for the day which I think was useful.

The atmosphere was really friendly - everyone clearly respected each other and enjoyed their work, and the working environment was very relaxed, meaning you felt as if you were trusted to be getting on with your work. There were also lots of morale events each week including board games, pizza/film nights and pub trips which were great fun.

I think I have a very good idea of this now - I was working full time in the office with all the employees, so there wasn't really a difference between the atmosphere I had as an intern and the atmosphere I would have as an employee. Being involved in standups and small meetings and being able to discuss with the employees also helped to give insight into other parts of the job that weren't as important for interns (things like reviews).

Very - I had been having trouble deciding between a career in software development and a more mathematical academia style career, but having not had much experience at all in software development I was uncertain about the former. This placement was fantastic for showing me what it's like to work within a company doing software development, and has definitely made me want to apply for a job in software development next year.

This wasn't an official internship, so was unpaid, but the company offered to pay expenses. This covered accommodation, travel and lunch expenses, with a very reasonable limit (£200 per week). Expenses forms were provided and expenses were paid fairly quickly.

Yes, and I was also involved in some of these - there are various morale trips throughout the year, including places like Alton Towers and climbing. There are monthly pub trips (normally these end up happening far more often), meals out and board game evenings. There are also ways to get involved in coding outside of work, through mentoring school children or contributing to open source projects.

Definitely - I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Softwire, the work was really interesting (to the point that it almost felt like I wasn't working!) and the people there were really lovely! I learned so much in such a short space of time, and would love to have the opportunity to return to work for the company again. If you are interested in software development, this is a great place to find out if it's for you.