Technology Intern Review

The internship was well ran and a lot of support was available for the interns. YouView has a really good office atmosphere, and a culture where it is very easy to ask for help if you need. This all made for a fun, interesting internship where you can learn a great deal from the people employed there.

My team was incredibly helpful, and also listened to what I had to say regarding my project and valued my opinion at every step. This was great as it lead to some interesting conversations about things I was working on, and if I was ever stuck, having this dialogue made it easier to move forward with my project. They emphasised the importance of the project, and also made sure I knew the potential gain to the business that was being provided by it.

There was a lot of support for those who asked. Never did I ever get the feeling I was being a pain for asking questions, or that I was getting in the way of anyone. Support was there both in the form of guidance on specific technical details of a project I was working on, to advice about the tech industry in general.

The vast majority of the time was spent working on my intern project, therefore most of my days were spent chipping away at this to complete it. This meant that there was always work to be done, and it was rare that you come across the typical intern problem of sitting at your desk with no work to do!

Personally I had an intern project to complete therefore the responsibility was not huge, due to the fact the immediate business impact of any success/failure in the project was not significant. Despite this, the potentials of the project were communicated well, and having the responsibility to work on something which may well have a business impact in the future did lend a sense of responsibility.

Programming every day on the internship has undoubtedly improved my skill as a software developer. Alongside this, using technologies which I had not used before will undoubtedly come in useful in my degree and beyond. Working and communicating with my team allowed me to see first hand how an agile team operates, and having experience being a part of a team such as this will definitely be helpful in the future.

The general atmosphere in the office was a good balance of relaxed but focused. It was a culture which encouraged innovation, and also quite a flat structure, so even as an intern you were comfortable speaking and engaging with anyone in the office. There was also a strong culture of learning in the office, and employees were encouraged to research and learn anything they may feel will help them in their job.

The internship was set up very well. Within the first week I was already briefed about a problem YouView was having, and was given an outline of a project was given which would attempt to solve the problem. On pretty much the first day everything was in place for me to start working on it, therefore there was a minimal amount of waiting around, etc.

The company always encouraged interns to learn as much as possible from what they were working on, and also encouraged communication between teams. There was also access to linkedin learning available so if you wanted to learn anything specific the resources were there for you to do so as well.

YouView runs a graduate scheme that seems appealing and offers a lot of training and development to the grads. From what I saw it seems like a well ran scheme and is appealing.

There was a good atmosphere between all of the interns, and we regularly went for lunch together.

Going out is expensive, but within reason considering how expensive central London is. Living in the area would have been difficult, however it is possible to get a good place nearby for (relatively) cheap.

The nightlife around central London is second to none - plenty of bars directly around monument, and also if you were willing to take a short walk Liverpool Street/Shoreditch were just up the road. These are all great areas to go out in, and should be definitely taken advantage of if working so close.

There were plenty of opportunities, such as board game nights, football on Monday nights, etc. There were also one-off events such as the summer party which was good fun.