Physical Design Engineer Review

Overall I have very much enjoyed my placement. Day to day I have a lot of fun with the work I do - in part because its rewarding to see my work used in real engineering situations and part because I simply enjoy the problem solving part of engineering. I wouldn't say that it has been perfect - there are parts that I have had to do and not enjoyed so much. But you will get that in any Job. Overall I do enjoy work very much. Put it this way, I never feel on a Sunday Night annoyed that I have to go to work the next day

Considering everything I feel very values by my colleagues. I have fit in with the team well and I feel valued by my team on the social side. In terms of work my team get me to complete tasks that are required by the team (as in the work that I complete is valued in an engineering aspect.) There was one member of the team I felt sometimes didn't appreciate that I was only an intern and was still learning but that is only a very small annoyance that I have had only a couple of times

Being reasonable I couldn't be happier with the amount of support I have had by my Manager and Supervisor. I have had bi weekly meetings with both since the start,m tracking my progress and getting little bits of feedback. I have also had guidance wherever I really have needed the help. This has not always come from my supervisor - sometimes another member of the team when my supervisor is busy, My guidance from Supervisor/Manager hasn't been "perfect" - sometimes they're so busy they haven't had chance to help me out. But this is rare and they have a full and very demanding job to do so its understandable that they cant tend to me on demand. They're too busy so infrequently I understand and I cant reasonably doc them a point for it

Day to day very busy - training at the start was over a period of time where I wasn't very busy. But one I got into proper work a couple of weeks in I have basically constantly got something to do. Some of the non engineering interns have placements where they're given tasks per day and then sometimes it means they have loads of work and sometimes hardly any (really inconsistent) I however just have a nice amount of work every day as I am just set a project that will take a month or more to complete

I have had a lot of responsibility in my work to create scripts and applications my team need to do their Job. However I haven't always had chance to work on the actual chip directly - always indirectly. I can understand that they don't want an intern to be project critical and I am still setting the experience of what goes on indirectly

I have gained experience in Physical Layout which is something I have never done at University so far so its been very good experience in that. I have had training on 3 EDA tools which is good and will hopefully help in the future. Even if I don't go directly into Physical Layout this will have been good experience in the whole industry of silicon design

Generally the atmosphere in the office was very fun - my team in particular. Our team bonded inside and outside of the work environment. We did small things like get Friday breakfasts together and there was always a sense of togetherness between my team. Every month we went out for a meal on Payday not because it was organised but just because it was a nice thing to do with people who like each other. From my perspective I would give a perfect 10 but I am only giving 8 as some of the other engineering teams are not quite as social. There was also a lot of fun initiatives by Intel where they have a "Great place to work scheme" where they do small free things rarely. Like free Easter eggs for all employees at Easter, fortune cookies at Chinese new year etc). Overall I would say it is quite relaxed atmosphere. Not to say we dont work hard, people work very hard and work out of the office hours too (not interns.) But people are not stressing to an uncomfortable degree

Overall has seemed perfectly organised. Quick turnaround from interview to job offers. No real surprises in terms of things going wrong. My team had a plan roughly of what they wanted me to complete throughout the year. Intel have done about 6 years of internships so far with about an intake of 50 in this office over the last three years so they're spot in in terms of organisation from my perspective. My team also had work laid out for me to do that was actually needed - I never felt that I have just kind of been forced on my team and they have had to find work for me to do. There has been a few organised fun activities to do and the intern community has organised their own fun things to do also.

I have had a lot of training in the area of work I am in. However, a lot of the training I have kind of had on the job training more than like courses. I have been exposed to another 5 programming/scripting languages. I have been taught how to use three different EDA tools. I have been taught more advance techniques in using UNIX ( I would have been taught basics too but I already knew them.) I have learnt a lot and I feel like I know a lot more than before. My team have invested a lot of time in teaching me aspects of things we do (e.g. the ins and outs of static time analysis or layout verification for example) The reason I give a 8 though is the fact that I know the previous intern was sent on a few official courses for the EDA tools and some programming languages. I have gained the same knowledge overall but it would have been nice to also have a certificate for it

First let me say why I didn't put a 10. My team complain of a lack of internal documentation for the chips we produce. If we need to check something we need to manually reach out to the RTL team to question them every time. That has no effected my internship and certainly is not a deal breaker - but at the same time has to have a mark taken off. Apart from that I would be very keen to come back for an amount of time. There are opportunities to travel to different offices all over the globe (USA/India/China/Germany etc) and I do like the company culture. The industry is always moving ahead and Intel seem to be always pushing boundaries in the cutting edge. If you dont mind the possibility of moving around (the particular industry or physical location) then they would be amazing to work for (but still good even if you dont!)

I have kind of spoken about this in different parts. Yes it has been perfect. Team is closely bonded, going out for meals and going on a day trip after we completed out last main project. There is a sense of unity between us. There is a great community between the interns also as there is so many of us. We have different committees that the interns can join. I am part of three (Publishing, Inspire (Building projects and teaching/inspiring children into STEM careers, Sports & Social) There are other ones too. We have done lots of exiting things together - sports, nights out, meals. We all went for a weekend away together at that start which was amazing. Its not quite the same as being at University but it comes close and I cant see any jobs being better

The south west is where a lot of the Jobs in this industry are located. I have given a score of 8 taking this into account - if I was to rate this relative to the rest of the UK the score would be a lot lower as obviously the south is a lot more expensive than the North in general. Swindon is decently cheap, less expensive it seems than Reading, Bristol, Bath (where I go to uni) London. A lot of people at Intel are mostly from the south west area so it is probably going to be cheaper to live than where you go to uni, but if you're travelling from far north (where I originally am from) then expect Swindon to be quite expensive compared to where you live. I personally pay ~£330 for my house including bills for a really nice house that 20 minutes from the town center and 20 minutes walk to work (5 minute drive with no traffic) (also I walk quite fast) However I do thing I got lucky on the scale of houses. Try get in there early as some other interns are paying more towards £400 for all their house and bills. Food is normal price, haircut about £11 cinema is average price again. To sum up Swindon is cheap for the South west, but also its a lot less nice of a place than Bath and Bristol

Swindon is not a university town so you can already tell it is not amazing. If you are happy going out on Saturdays there is a club called Tree (only open Friday and Saturday) and that is amazing to be fair, pricey for Swindon (less than bath, more than Leeds) but I could not fault it except that. However there is nowhere good open any other days of the week if thats your thing (that is any good anyway) There is a club called Boston brothers that is open on a Thursday (Thursday is a day a lot of the interns seen to always go out because a lot go home on the weekend) is bad to be honest, only has like 20 people in it. From what I have talked about with my other friends who are on placement not at a university town Swindon is good because Tree on the weekend is good. But It will never be as good as a uni town

There are a large amount of opportunities for fun things about. Charity committee has organised fun things like bake sales, rounders, guess the baby, netball, sports day. Sports and social committee organised events like Football, netball, trampolining, nights out, weekend away etc. Being part of the committee yourself will let you suggest things to do so you can all organised your own things you enjoy. Intel also have a "Sports and Social Club" which is all employees not just Interns. Its £5 a month and you get a discount on lots of things that the ISSC run (Trips to the theater, wine tasting, Swindon town football matches, cooking classes) You can also join the events without the £5 a month thing but each individual event doesn't have a discount. I personally haven't joined any of these just because I am so busy doing other things anyway but my friends that have done them rate them a lot.