Product and Programme Review

I quite enjoyed my placement. I am trusted on my first day to work in a secret project with NDA. So although I can't tell what I am working on, the trust on my ability is great and I appreciate that. The line manager arranged a variety of area to work with. They give me a multi-dimentional insight into the work our team has.

My colleagues always value my work and effort. The work level is very flat: I am work level 1 (intern/newly joined) and my work level 3 and 4 sits on the same type of desk with me just like other colleagues (WL2). When my work does help a lot, they will quickly express their appreciation sincerely face to face. If I can improve my work, or made a mistake, they usually give valuable feedback and suggestions on better approach to problems. All the colleagues are willing to help, although most people are really busy.

I think my line manager (LM) guides me well. Objectives were drafted on my 1st day and they are constantly reviewed and discussed. We often have 1 to 1 meetings to give me feedback and guidance. The work load my LM has arranged enables me to truly learn from work. Things that won't be explained well by words are generally taught to me during day to day works.

Overall I should say not too busy. There is no fixed on/off work schedule so it is quite flexible. There is time when emails stack up, to-do-list would need to delay to tomorrow, running from meetings to meetings. Although those days could be busy, pressure rarely add up to worrying levels. There is time when it could be quite relaxing. I can use this time to do self-study on internal learning platforms.

Big and small, heavy and light; Big responsibility is still in NDA, but I can say it's huge responsibility; a huge trust to my ability; and very important to the team and the company. There are some smaller responsibilities as well, they make life more colourful. They vary in nature and are all interesting and insightful to the business.

I study electrical engineering, and the trainings in internship is not likely to help the technical part of my degree. But a lot of skills have been developed that would benefit me in the future study and career: mainly soft skills, like emails, how to handle/organise meetings, different ways to communicate with colleagues etc.

Overall it's good. My colleague sits near/opposite/behind me, so any problem just need a shout. We don't really have a fixed "your seat" and we often move to other office/working location as needed. There are many sofas/extra seating area other than desks to have more relaxed chat. Although the open nature of the office assists work level to be flat, it does sacrifices most of the privacy.

Very organised. From the 1st week training, to week to week activities, the internship is well organised. We have the chance to go to a lot of other venues and experience other area of business - so won't be trapped in office all day. At the end, we would have a completion meeting so summarise and demonstrate our internship experience - so that we can get feedback from high level, maybe even CTO (if he has free time to come ...)

Some training are organised, although I am not sure how useful they are - need to see the long term impact. A lot of training are done online - compliance, code of conduct etc. We have access to Plurasight - so we can train ourselves in our free time. This is one point I need to flag and praise.

Hard to say. Certainly Tesco welcomes interns to come back. But I don't see high incentives yet - the career framework description are really boring and user rejecting.

Yeah, it's good. We have the chance to make a team with interns in other department to do charity sales competition - this provides a lot of social. With interns in the same department, we have a lot of chance to do sight visit together and other social events as well.

Cost of living is on the down side: the working location is in Welwyn Garden City, a satellite town of London; most interns don't live anywhere near the town; but Tesco have neither rent subsidy or commute compensation. Consider the wage level, a large part of the intern's salary is spend on rent and travel.

No idea.

Yeah; During World Cup, colleagues invited interns to go to pub and watch England games. We have a football pitch, gym and other sports facilities on site; so it is convenient to exercise. We do charity sales - it's a competition between different intern groups - we raise money for charity.