Software Engineering Internship Review

I think I enjoyed the internship a lot, there were many enjoyable activities and I also found my project very enjoyable. The activities which I consider to be the most enjoyable and in which I took part in include especially football, ultimate frisbee, intern hackathon, starting and leaving drinks. The variety of activities to make the internship and work at Metaswitch enjoyable is really wide, and this makes it easy for everybody to find what they like. As for the project, I really enjoyed working on it most of the time.

I felt valued by my colleagues, especially by my manager. My opinions and interests were taken into account when deciding on the next tasks to do, and also when I discovered that some tools or approaches could be more suitable, my manager was happy to discuss that with me and then follow my approach. As for other colleagues, I did not work a lot with them on my project, but there were still some occasions when we discussed my project, and I feel that they valued what I did and thought.

I was given a lot of support and guidance by my manager/mentor (in my case my manager was also my mentor, but interns usually have a different mentor than manager). This was really helpful especially at the beginning when I needed much more guidance and help since I had not worked on such project before. I think I learned a lot thanks to a lot of support, and great guidance resulted in my project being a real success. However, there were still some cases when my manager was not able to help me with the particular technical problems, and I had to try harder to solve them on my own, but this is acceptable since the tasks I did were quite advanced.

I had almost always something to do, which is great. I also had some ideas about what could be the next steps. I was relatively busy, but it did not mean that I would feel under pressure. I could always just comfortably follow my own pace, and I did not feel stressed about meeting some specific deadlines (although this may be because I worked and found solutions to problems quite quickly). So the balance was really great.

I was given my own project, and I had full responsibility for it. Of course, I was supported and guided by my manager, but otherwise it was me who developed the code, thought about the solutions to some of the problems and designed some of the features (after some discussions with my manager to know what are some of the expectations). So I think that the balance between support and independence/responsibility was really great, and this helped me learn a lot more about developing applications. I also want to highlight that I was responsible for all steps of developing an app (full-stack), which is great for my future.

I feel that the skills I have learned are very useful for my future in many different ways. I learned how to create web apps, improved my coding skills, learned some new algorithms, improved my presentation skills, team-work skills (there was a hackathon for interns, but otherwise it was not really team-based). These skills are useful in various settings, for example, in school, but more in my future work, future hackathons or if I would decide to create my own startup. I think that I learned a lot during the internship, and I believe this is one of the greatest qualities of this internship.

The atmosphere in the office was relaxed, but sometimes maybe a bit dull. There were some activities to make the atmosphere more fun, especially during the lunch, which was great. These activities include playing sports (football, ultimate frisbee) or playing card games. I would personally appreciate if we had in our office some billiard, table tennis or table football, which would make the atmosphere more fun, but there is not really space for that since the office is quite small.

I think that on the whole it was set up quite well, but there are definitely improvements to be made. For example, I could have my computer ready when I came first to the office or there could be no confusions with booking hotel for the intern hackathon. There are some guides to make all the things with organization smooth, but sometimes the implementation is not that great. As for my project, I think it was organised well.

The company did invest a fair amount into my personal training and development. I had a manager/mentor whom I could ask always when I had problems, and I also had good equipment for my work. There was also a presentation session and an intern hackathon which were good for personal development. Otherwise, I learned most of the things by working on my project or reading online tutorials. I would personally prefer to have also some sessions with experts in the industry to learn even more, although there were still some education sessions.

Metaswitch has a great culture and work-life balance in my opinion. I also got to work on a very interesting project there, which greatly fitted my interests. However, I plan to focus mostly on machine learning in the future, and I am not really sure if I could spend that much time on it in Metaswitch (although my project included a bit of machine learning, which I appreciate).

The social scene was good among the interns, although it could be better. One of the downsides was that there were only six interns in Edinburgh (the office is not too big, so I understand the number), and we were split among more company houses. There were activities which were really good to support the intern social scene, including regular sports events, welcome drinks and, most importantly, one week of activities (including an intern hackathon) in the main office in London. This also helped us get to know the interns in the other offices. As for the other colleagues, they were really friendly and they also took part in the sports and drinks, which was great.

The cost of living was all right, although it could have been cheaper especially when taking into account that the housing was subsidised. So the cost of housing was good, but not too cheap. There were quite often welcome drinks which were free, so I did not need to spend too much money on socialising. As for food, I could cook and bring my own lunches to the office, so the cost was fine, but it would be better if we could just get lunch for free in the office (which is not really possible with the size of the office) - fortunately there were fruits and cookies for free.

I guess the nightlife in Edinburgh was pretty good, especially because there was the famous festival called Fringe. But I did not take part in the nightlife so I cannot say it for sure.

Yes, there were such activities - especially during the lunch. Most notably sports such as football or ultimate frisbee, card games and also welcome drinks after work. There was also one week in London which included a hackathon for interns, but otherwise there were not many activities outside of work, so we could basically just do what we wanted. Of course, it would be probably a bit better if there were more activities outside of work.