First Foundry Analyst Review

I really enjoyed my time there, learned a lot and bonded very well with my colleagues and fellow interns. I've gained a lot of experience, made a lot of new connections and most importantly had a great time doing so. It was a very fun and creative environment to work at.

My colleagues treated me like one of the team and as if I had been working there for as long as them. They were interested both in what I was doing as well as gave me feedback on how I could improve. I've felt like a respected and valuable member of the team.

We had regular meetings with my supervisor and discussed about everything I wanted to achieve through the internship, always making sure that I enjoy and I am making the most out of it. Whenever we asked for something (eg. talks on some new technology) they would readily provide it within the next few days.

Part of the agile environment that I was working in was to know to not bite more than we can chew. There were daily Scrum standups and weekly planning sessions to ensure that all of us had just enough to do and to ensure that we could complete it before the end of the sprint.

A great deal of responsibility was given during my placement. We run a coding school for employees children all on our own, regularly delivered presentations to our business partners, VPs, Directors as well as fellow interns or members of our own teams. We were also responsible to engage with other teams in order to collaborate and proceed with our projects.

I've gained a variety of skills in new languages, tools and frameworks that will prove very useful for the rest of my career both in a work environment as well as in an educational environment. We also had regular talks and hackathons on various new technologies that were both very fun and engaging and left us with valuable knowledge.

Very creative, relaxed and joyful. There were a lot of fun events taking place during my time there like Wii tennis tournaments, paper plane competitions, egg drop challenges and many other fun challenges that served as a very nice break from the routine and made me really enjoy the time spent at the office.

Very well organised. We enjoyed a range of activities, including talks from VPs from all different areas and locations of the company (including US teleconferences with the American Express CEO!), as well as trips to provide back to the community, educational talks from employees, and a wide variety of social events.

The firm assisted in us learning a variety of new tools, frameworks and technologies, enhanced our confidence with improv sessions and regular presentations to senior people within the firm, provided regular guidance in any problems we have encountered and responded very well and very quickly to feedback, be that good or bad.

Excellent. The company makes an offer at the end to selected interns to continue on the graduate program as a permanent role, which includes regular rotations of the different teams before you exit the program and can join the team you liked the most to continue from there. The company has a career progression plan set in place and your leaders encourage you and help you achieve your goals and progress through the company.

We bonded very well with fellow placement colleagues and very regularly ( every 1-2 days) went out or attended events together. The programme managers would also attend a lot of events with us and even organise some for us in London such as visits to the London Zoo, London Eye and river cruises.

Unfortunately the general cost of both accommodation and socialising was not as good as one might expect. The rent was around £500-600 for a room and can go up to £800+ if you want your personal space. The social life wasn't very cheap either which was mostly in Brighton. At least food places near the office were not too expensive.

The area was a 10 minute train trip to Brighton which is well known for it's nightlife and social vibe. There are a lot of restaurants, clubs, bars for anyone to experience as the city is dominated by young people and many nice places to visit day or night (eg. the pier).

There were a few events organised outside work that you could join (eg. taking part in Brighton pride)