Technology Intern Review

I have really enjoyed my time at M&G as a technology intern. The friendly and welcoming atmosphere made it so easy to settle in, and people were always happy to make the time to speak to me and answer any of my questions. I particularly enjoyed the agile working environment, which seemed perfect for a tech team where collaboration is key. Within my team I was able to experience a range of different technology tasks, such as training our AI chatbot, writing test codes, creating thumbnails and various online coding courses on C#, html and JavaScript. I came into this internship with very limited finance knowledge and no coding experience, and I have been given the opportunity to learn and develop a huge range of new skills that will be extremely useful for my future career.

Agile working environments mean everyone is able to freely ask questions and discuss their work with other members of the team throughout the day, and this allowed me to feel immediately very welcome and settle quickly into the team. I spent a lot of time at the start of the internship shadowing different team members, which allowed me to understand the various job roles and quickly feel involved in the teams work. From the moment I arrived I felt included, and people were always happy to give me work or let me sit with them to learn a new skill that I could then use in later tasks.

My manager was lovely and I always felt supported throughout my time at M&G. Unfortunately she was away for the first few weeks of the internship, but other members of the team stepped in to make me feel welcome and give me work to do. I was encouraged to ask as many questions as possible to assist my learning.

I was always busy which is how I like it. Any time the team didn’t have any work for me to do, I spent that free time doing online coding courses to try and develop this new skill. This allowed me to better understand the teams work and take on new tasks.

Within the first week some of my code was implemented into our system. Even without having much experience the team were keen to involve me and give me as much responsibility as possible. Due to my lack of coding experience I couldn't be given too much responsibility, and my work obviously needed checked before being used.

The coding skills I have developed here will help me a lot next year at university as I have a project to complete for my master's degree. I would definitely like my future career to be technology related, and so I believe everything I have learnt throughout my time at M&G will be useful. The investment insight sessions were also very useful (especially for the tech interns with not much finance knowledge). Even in technology, I believe it's essential to have a basic understanding of the business side of things too when working in a financial management company.

The general atmosphere throughout the office was happy and welcoming. People clearly enjoy their work at M&G and get along well with their co-workers, which I think is incredibly important. This was the main reason why I enjoyed my time here so much as it was such an enjoyable, positive working environment.

The internship was very well organised, with finance insight sessions every morning for the first 4 weeks introducing us to basic financial terms and allowing us to better understand what the business does as a whole. We had regular intern socials to allow us to settle well and make good friends within our cohort, and we also had events with the current graduates where we could find out about the graduate scheme.

I think the main focus in inviting us here for the internship was for personal training and development. The attitude was definitely to learn as much as we could, talk to as many people as possible and find out what we enjoy at M&G and if it suits us. HR's organised insight sessions allowed us to understand finance, and my team allowed me to develop my interest in technology and learn a lot of new skills. I now have a good understanding of what I want to do with my future career.

I have enjoyed my time at M&G so much and I would love to come back on the grad scheme. With the ability to rotate around different technology teams it would be a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what I enjoy and develop my skills before rolling off into a permanent job position. We have an assessment centre during the final week of the placement to see if we get onto the grad scheme.

My group of interns got along very well. We often went out after work for dinner or drinks, and we also had organised social events by HR. My team were also very sociable, and invited me out to the pub after work on several occasions, and we had lunch as a team to celebrate big releases and birthdays.

You can rent student accommodation in London for the summer, and this is where I lived for the 8 week internship with some friends from Uni. It was expensive but affordable with the salary from the internship. Again, socialising in London is always more expensive than elsewhere, but all the intern social events were paid for by the company.

The Nightlife in London is very good but also expensive. I only went out clubbing a couple of times as it was pricey, but they were all very good nights. There is such a range of different activities, bars and clubs- for example we went to a ping pong bar and an indoor mini golf bar.

Yes there were a range of social events- drinks with the grads, ping pong, treasure hunt, pub quiz and a day trip volunteering at a farm! I also got involved in the JP Morgan 6K run, and went to a coding dojo held in M&G after work. Also the teams would often go out for drinks after work on a Friday.