Summer Technology Analyst Review

I was lucky to be part of team which was using new and interesting technologies, and also the people were all very nice and friendly. Outside of my team, everyone I met in the office was always approachable and helpful. I saw first hand the enormous effort J.P.Morgan puts into its technological division, and the desire to constantly improve their software development practices. There is nothing more I could have asked for in a Technology internship.

Everyone went above and beyond to make me feel at home. Any time I had troubles with something, I knew who to turn to, and I always got help. I contributed to the team's efforts just as much as anyone else - participated in the discussions as equal, pushed code to the team's codebase, and my advice and opinion were always taken into consideration.

One of the senior developers on the team was assigned to work with me and the other interns in the team. He was very involved and worked very closely with us. We did pair programming with him quite often, and overall he was very close to the entire process. The team's manager was also very approachable and often joined in our discussions. Also, any problems we had with permissions, etc. were very often quickly sorted.

I had just the right amount of time to do everything I had to in a day. I had to split my time between producing software, learning about new technologies, learning about new practices, intern meetings, team meetings. However, I did not feel pressured at any point, since everything was handled great by the recruitment team and by my manager.

I was put in a sub-team with two other interns. In the beginning, we worked separately from the other in the team, but as time went on, the tasks we were given started to overlap with some of the things the team was doing. By the end, we had developed the foundations of a system which would be picked up and finished by one of the graduates in the team. We were free to do most of the design decisions, as long as we justified and documented everything.

Everyone was quite friendly. It was quite a large office with a lot of people. There were kitchens on each floor, where people often got together for a chat, for lunch, or for coffee. It did not have bean bags or pool tables, etc. but I think those are unnecessary anyway. You go to the office to work, and except for the kitchen areas, the general feeling throughout the office is of people doing work.

I had to do a performance and development review in the middle and in the end of my internship. I had to identify areas where I wanted to improve, and areas where I had been doing well. My manager was very involved in this process, and helped me quite a lot. I also received a free Pluralsight account, which I could use to learn anything I wanted - including things I was not directly involved with in my internship. I used it at home and at work, and it was a very nice resource to have.

I got offered a full-time graduate position with them. The whole process was very smooth. I did not have to do an interview in the end, it was just my performance during the internship that mattered. The whole internship was designed to make it as easy as possible to show off my skills, and I would love to come back and work with the same people again. This is why I accepted my offer.

There were dozens of interns in the same office as me. We had organised a Facebook group, where meetings and events were arranged. There were plenty of new people to meet and hang out with. The recruitment team organised several events for all the interns as well, which were all very well attended and fun.

It was pretty normal, even cheap I would say. Glasgow is not a particularly expensive city, and the rents are not too high. Places like clubs and pubs are usually very well priced as well. There are a lot of places around the office where one can have lunch at, and they are all reasonably priced. I would not recommend eating out every day, but I was not particularly worried price-wise.