Technology Intern Review

I loved it. Short and simple, I had a great time. The people, were, and still are all great; really they made the experience for me. That's not to say the work faltered, that too was both enjoyable and rewarding, but I can't praise the people, or the working culture they produced enough. I'm on a another placement as I write this and to say I miss YouView would be an understatement; no doubt they'll be hearing from me again.

This is really a two fold answer; in the initial week and a half I'd say not very - although to be honest this is to be expected when starting at a new company. In the subsequent weeks as my role evolved, however - more on that below - this definitely changed. As I got more involved, equally I found people more and more interested in my opinions, to the point where people such as developers would ask my advice, or I be having strategic conversations on how we'd prep for the upcoming Alpha release - it very quickly reached the point were my being an intern no longer mattered, and that for me was fantastic.

I've already praised the staff and this answer is no different - you could go and ask anyone and they would try their best to help you, that or find someone who could - honestly great day to day support. Aside from harassing my fellow colleges then, my managers were all great too; each had the right amount of input, never did I feel micromanaged but equally I never felt lost, and should I have needed them they would have been happy to help. I really was given the ability to sway my internship too, I had an interest in program management and although that wasn't my role, my managers gave me leave to go and talk to anyone that would help. In fact my role was expended so that I was leading meetings because I expressed that interest to do that.

This varied day to day but really I was in charge of this, working in an agile way I could choose what to focus on, and although at times I was swamped, I never felt overwhelmed. When I joined YouView they were preparing to go into alpha trials on their next gen release, this as you can probably imagine was a frantic time for the company as whole, but for my day to day I'd say I had a good balance.

Honestly quite a staggering amount in hindsight - I will say however, that my circumstances may have been unique in this regard. At the end of my second week the lead test engineer for the cluster of 'Settings, Set Up and Help', left suddenly, as in two days notice suddenly, and I was asked to step in. In this new role I had a whole myriad of responsibilities - I wrote and modified test cases, I signed off on new features, worked with various departments - developers, front end, product, UX, delivery etc. I fed back to a wider team of testers and assisted them were possible, I lead meetings and fought for changes where I felt necessary.

I've no doubt YouView left me with an abundance of skills, not to overstate the 'real' angle but I worked with real people on a real product and have the experience to show for it. I've mentioned this prior but I had the chance to get involved with what I had an interest in; having that tailored experience was invaluable.

Really relaxed and chill. YouView in my experience was a very social company and that showed in the atmosphere - people were happy and so I was. You could easily go and grab a coffee with someone, disappear away from your desk and that'd be fine, really so long as you didn't advantage of it and you got your work done, then it was a really flexible workplace.

This may be the only area in which some aspects fell short for me - I will say that it was organised really well for the most part, we got great introductions from all staff and has clear visibility looking ahead, YouView even hosted development sessions with external parties etc. I did however have a few teething issues when I stepped up to fill that role left by my colleague, the first few days were very intense with one of my mangers not realising I was an intern; that I take as a compliment, but it really was quite full on. I like to think I came out on top of that situation but I could imagine some people finding that aspect really stressful - I do stress however, that this was probably a one off scenario.

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I would happily go back tomorrow, or more realistically next summer if they'd have me.

The other interns were great, really social people and I'm grateful to be able to call them friends - YouView actually held a mixer for us, and the whole company on the first Friday we had there and that was a massive help socially. Looking past the interns and to the employees too, there was the summer party which was fantastic, really just an other avenue to show off how social YouView is.

It was London so there was London prices to content with, but the placement was well paid to help accommodate with this.

Again, London. With the night tube now too, you have a ridiculous amount of options.

Quite a few, I for example played company football every Monday.