Partner Solutions Analyst Review

It was a great experience and opportunity to work for one of the worlds leading technology companies as it allowed me to expand my understanding of edge devices and how different areas of IOT technolgoy is rapidly growing to create solutions that exist in everyday products, from the AI inference programs/technology being ran in modern vehicles or the latest and greatest in storage technology increasing the speed of data center workloads. I thoroughly enjoyed that there was plenty to learn and many opportunities to work in different areas of the business, the company is very open to supporting and facilitating your desire to learn something specific outside of your role.

At Intel everyone treats each Intern as a full time employee, you will be given responsibilities which will have real outcomes and directly impact the performance of the company. Colleagues will hold you accountable for your role but are very willing to help and are very open in giving you feedback on how to improve, recognizing and respecting your hard work. Everyone in the organisation is respectful of your opinions/ideas and encourage people to challenge the norm, input is valued and taken into account when making changes. My team in particular was very close as we were encouraged to share personal stories and more about ourselves with each other so that we could bond on a deeper level, team development sessions were particularly interesting and useful as it gave us better insight to who we worked with outside of their role.

Over the course of my internship I had regular touch points with both my on the job coach and manager, having frequent meetings multiple times a week. This was particularly useful as it allowed me to have a forum to voice any concerns or questions that I would like to be answered, my manager and on the job coach were very supportive and made sure that any issues I had were addressed in a timely manner. They were also very supportive with things like mental and physical health issues, regularly checking to see how I was doing and whether any support was needed, I am especially appreciative of this as many people can be suffering from these problems during the COVID-19 lock down and having readily available support is beneficial.

My role in particular was quite busy, I would say on an average week my calendar would be at approximately 90% - 100% capacity, from my perspective being busy and having tasks to do is a good thing as it means that I can focus my time and develop my skills. However there were moments during peak periods in certain quarters/months where I had to work outside of regular office hours, this is a fault of my own as it is my responsibility to manage my work load and ensure that I am not taking on too many tasks. I found no issue with this level of workload as I would take on more tasks willingly, as mentioned above my manager and on the job coach checked in with me regularly and offered support to where necessary if they saw that I was taking on too much work or struggling with bandwidth. Overall I would say for my base role there was a perfect balance of work to do, the average day would see me having at least something to do no matter how little the task.

I feel that during my internship I was giving a lot of responsibility over tasks, I can't go into detail of what kind of things I was involved in however from a broad level description, part of my responsibilities was to manage the operations for a partner program within the organisation at the EMEA level alongside the partner account manager of the program. I was given a fair amount of autonomy the further I got into my internship as I had demonstrated a high level of understanding of the programs objectives and it's benefit to Intel and it's partners. I had influence over the kind of changes to the systems our partners used, arranging relevant training sessions for our partners, managing the relationships we had with partners, on boarding new companies into the program and directly engaging with the program owners at the HQ level to represent any issues we see from the EMEA region. This only made up about 60% of my responsibilities and beyond this I felt like I was given a lot more responsibility for many other tasks in my team.

I believe that the work I did has helped me develop a skill set which is highly applicable to my degree and future jobs, as some of the responsibilities I had pushed me to my limits. The 2 most important skills I developed were communication skills and general management skills, being able to attend customer meetings and events helped me understand how to approach presenting to different audiences. You will find that the people you speak to vary in the technical understanding of products and it's vital that you approach conversation in a way which is easy to comprehend, detailed and relevant to the person you are talking to. I believe that I now have a better understanding of how to gauge the value people pull from conversations and speak in diplomatic way to people while being conscious of what engages them. Alongside this having the responsibility to manage a few events and partner programs has helped with my time management and prioritization of tasks in general. This will become useful in day to day life and in any future positions where I may need to organize events, as I had some valuable learning experiences when encountering issues organizing the events. One such issue we came across was with logistics and shipping, if I wasn't given full responsibility over this event I may not have even been aware of the problems I could encounter and learn how to solve them. So I am very appreciative of this

The atmosphere in the office was very positive, people in the company are very willing and happy to sit down to have a casual conversation with you granted that they have time in their calendar. Part of the company culture is to have an open work environment, encouraging people to engage with each other regularly and speak openly. There's a lot of facilities around the building to ensure that you were comfortable at work, free hot drinks machines, free fruit, kitchen facilities were spread out throughout the building to make sure that it was accessible for everyone.

Overall I would say that the organisation of the work placement was handled very well, clear and succinct plans are put in place to get you on boarded as soon as possible while ensuring that you are comfortable with the level and type of work you are doing. Throughout the internship you are given support from your on the job coach and manager to ensure that you have clear objectives and understanding of what your role is, while providing further opportunities to expand your role should you feel comfortable doing so.

As part of the company benefits, all employees get access to training resources which can give you accreditation in certain technologies or fields, many paid subscription services to business journals or skill development is offered for free and can come in very handy to those who want to further develop their skills outside of the role. Intel does a very good job of making sure that you understand your core responsibilities and giving you opportunities to work outside of them, there are many chances to join different teams to work on a variety of projects and get first hand experience with other areas of the business.

Intel gives all interns a fair opportunity to return to the organisation, you need to have demonstrated valuable skills and made great effort during the course of your internship to illustrate what tangible positive effect you have had on the company. The company places priority on selecting old interns as potential candidates for new openings over graduates who did not have a placement at Intel, before opening up applications to the position internally, meaning that there is plenty of opportunity for placement students to return. They will also make sure before you leave your internship to see if you are keen to return to the company so that they can reach out to people who have been incredibly successful in their role and would like to be rehired.

I personally did not engage with the other interns too much as I am not particularly keen on drinking events, most of the intern hosted events were either pub crawls or nights out at the nightclub which didn't particularly interest me. However the interns socials society did a good job of organizing frequent and regular events for interns to attend if they wanted to, I would occasionally join them for some of the ones that didn't involve heavy drinking. I did however incredibly enjoy wider organisation events and my team events, the company has a lot of committees dedicated to arranging fun themed events throughout the year with themed days and celebrations of different holidays. I would also have at least 1 team event each quarter where we could casually have a few drinks and a meal which I particularly enjoyed as it allowed us to all gather in one place and have casual conversations with each other.

The Swindon area isn't particularly cheap in my honest opinion, finding housing for a fair price seemed difficult at the start of my internship but I was fortunate enough to find an apartment which was decent in price. However I found that it was a little more expensive when it came to utility prices for internet, gas and electric. In terms of socializing it wasn't particularly expensive, there were many different locations to go to for a night out or a nice meal which varied in price, one nice part about the area is that there are many local restaurants and bars so the prices are quite varied allowing you to fit a budget that works for you.

I can't give a proper opinion on Nightlife in the area since I didn't really go out to any of the nightclubs or go out drinking often, however based on intern stories I can say that Swindon has a good amount of local pubs and bars for people to get some cheap drinks and a good night out. There's a wide variety of locations to drink at, so a pub crawl was something the interns would often do, afterwhich they would visit the local nightclub. It's a small town so after doing it once or twice there isn't much left to explore but I would say it does the job

Absolutely, Intel has many committees which are dedicated to activities outside of work or your role whether it be doing charity work and supporting local schools or getting involved in the sports committee and playing in team sports with your colleagues. There is countless things to get involved in and many events that happen in Swindon throughout the year, wine tasting events, local theater and concerts etc. Whether it be through Intel or local venues there is a fair amount to get stuck in to.