Technology Summer Intern Review
by American Express
This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
-
The Role
4.5
-
The Company
3.7
-
The Culture
2.9
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
The internship was really good. The experience was very eye opening and it proved to me that the corporate environment is not bad at all. Working at American Express feels like you're working at a startup inside a big company. The people are very helpful and there wasn't a point where I felt helpless or aimless.
The teams in the American Express Technology group are very helpful and inclusive. At no point did we feel like we were "just some interns" and we got treated exactly like a full time engineer, except for the extra intern perks :) We took part in day to day activities like stand-ups, planning and sprint reviews.
We had a project supervisor and then a technical buddy. They were available 24/7 for questions and they always took time out of their day to sit down with us and see where we were at. We also had a non-technical buddy which we met every week or whenever we needed something that was or wasn't directly related to our project.
The volume of work was good. We were busy daily working away at our project, but we were allowed to go at our own pace. If we did have any down time we were encouraged to work on side projects(I even built my personal website in my time there) and there's an online platform called Pluralsight which provides really good courses.
We were given the task to build a module of an application that was going to go into production next year. We were trusted to come up with our own architecture and make our own design decisions provided we had the justification to do so. Our team was included as part of the project alongside all the other 'real teams'.
I was encouraged to learn new skills and apply new technologies. We were also coached on Agile and how to apply that to our day to day work. The teams here have a vast variety of knowledge and they are all very eager to share what they know. I came in having done no front-end work and now I am confident in my ability to deliver a high-quality production ready piece of software.
The Company
Everybody is pretty laid back. There's no actual dress code and casual Friday is always a highlight, not to mention Thursday fun-day. The office in Burgess Hill is hot-desk so everybody gets to work in different locations in the same sector. You can go in and out of the office whenever and every team works from home once a week.
Our placement leader and his team did a great job setting up the internship and all the intern activities. There was enough of them to keep you engaged, but not too many to be overwhelming. There was a mix of work and non work activities. The office in Burgess Hill is hot-desk so everybody gets to work in different locations in the same sector. You can go in and out of the office whenever and every team works from home once a week.
Our placement leader and his team did a great job setting up the internship and all the intern activities. There was enough of them to keep you engaged, but not too many to be overwhelming. There was a mix of work and non work activities. The office in Burgess Hill is hot-desk so everybody gets to work in different locations in the same sector. You can go in and out of the office whenever and every team works from home once a week.
Our placement leader and his team did a great job setting up the internship and all the intern activities. There was enough of them to keep you engaged, but not too many to be overwhelming. There was a mix of work and non work activities. The office in Burgess Hill is hot-desk so everybody gets to work in different locations in the same sector. You can go in and out of the office whenever and every team works from home once a week.
The Culture
Our placement leader and his team did a great job setting up the internship and all the intern activities. There was enough of them to keep you engaged, but not too many to be overwhelming. There was a mix of work and non work activities. The office in Burgess Hill is hot-desk so everybody gets to work in different locations in the same sector. You can go in and out of the office whenever and every team works from home once a week.
Details
Internship (1 Month+)
Information Technology
London
August 2019
