Tech Intern Review

This was a wonderful experience, even though it had to be virtual, I found a very welcoming environment and good communication throughout the internship. I appreciated the preparation that was done in order for us to be set up, and the work-life balance was healthy. As a tech intern, I found the work sometimes hard to follow but overall stimulating, and I learned a lot: I got to experience SCRUM and Agile for the first time. Overall, I would recommend this internship to my friends.

I felt very much appreciated and valued by most colleagues, especially senior engineers, who always made time to chat with us interns. however, with the workload, I sometimes felt less qualified than my fellow interns, who seemed to understand things quicker than me. Overall, everyone was kind to me and I contributed enough work to the project to feel like a values and important member of the team. I appreciated the team dynamic and the supportive environment.

Usually supervisors and management were very quick to communicate with us and get back to us regarding questions. However, there were a few communication mishaps, and this lead to workflow issues. On top of this, one of our supervisors was on paid leave for most of our internship, which removed some of the guidance we would have had, but his was more of an organisational issue than anything. Overall, our supervisors gave us helpful guidance and feedback.

I found that our work came in waves, so while we were never overwhelmed or completely bored, we did find ourselves at times rushing to finish deadlines, and at other times with 4 people on a simple 2-person task. This could have been partially our fault as a team as a team though, and overall our project was interesting enough that the work we had was always enjoyable. I also could have claimed more challenging tasks to keep myself more stimulated.

We were pretty much entirely given control of the project and told to take initiative wherever we wanted to. We obviously had some guidance and requirements, but these were never completely strict. Occasionally a senior engineer would step in and request a change in our architecture or requirements, but for the most part, we made our own project. I was given as much responsibility within this project as I was willing to take on, as we self-assigned tasks at the beginning of the week.

I learned Kafka and Spring boot from the ground-up, but it was a different learning experience to normal: instead of learning by doing or starting from scratch, we learned by reading through and using/interpreting a pre-existing codebase. This was novel and interesting, and allowed us to use the tools faster, even though we may not know these tools in the same way that we would if we had learned to use them in a more traditional (linear) way.

Everyone was kind and upbeat, and we shared about ourselves without derailing from work. I feel that whether or not this had been an in-office experience, we would still make good friends with our colleagues and enjoy our time in the office. The environment was healthy, constructive, and very much appreciated. We continued workflow activities such as pair-programming, which increased our productivity and happiness in general. I appreciated the level of communication and workplace banter.

For a last-minute virtual internship, the set-up and the planning was impressive. We got our laptops shipped to us on time, the environment set-up was monitored and finished by the first day, and online meetings for training were relatively seamless. However, the online training courses (not meetings) were atrociously designed, which meant that we had to repeat some of the long trainings multiple times as the software did not save our progress, and cdertain. trainings just didn't work.

We were given access to pluralsight, a platform filled with online courses for learning new skills, and there were many online-meeting learning opportunities: we had weekly lunch-and-learn meetings, and healthy living sessions where we were taught anything from cocktail making to cardio to mental health info. Overall, AmEx invested a lot of time and effort into our wellbeing as well as our personal development. We even had a person in charge of teaching us workflow and monitoring us week by week.

This internship was often referred to as a two way 6-week long interview for a full-time placement at American Express. It did not feel as though we were being assessed the whole time however. It was stressed that their goal was indeed to hire a large percentage of their interns full-time. This was not a stress point for us in our project, but a motivation to do well. A lot of the members of my team are most likely expecting an offer.

It was certainly difficult to meet during lockdown, I understand a few teams did meet up in a socially distant manner, and we were encouraged to meet up in a park or something. There were a lot of online game events (such as pictionnary or pub quizzes) to make up for the lack of in-person experience so I fell that in general I still got to socialise with my fellow students quite a lot on this internship.

Given we were working remotely, the cost was as low as we wanted it to be/as low as in pour own neighbourhoods. The office itself is in Victoria, which in ordinary times can be quite expensive to live in, but at the moment (during quarantine) it is half-off dining for half the week, so it would be surprisingly affordable. The other offices being in Brighton, the same applies: Brighton/Burgess Hill are typically on the more expensive end of living costs

The nightlife was non-existent due to Covid-19 but in ordinary times, Victoria and Brighton/Burgess Hill are incredibly bustling with nightlife and joy. There would be many opportunities to go out with colleagues in non-lockdown days. However, since we were in the throws of Coronavirus, this was unfortunately not an option fo us. I would have enjoyed getting to know my colleagues better or just going out for the night, but it wasn't the worst loss.

There were many activities organised and we were invited to participate in many online events outside of work, such as pub quiz, cocktail making, pictionnary, general games nights... Also, American Express has a wonderful Coffee Chat culture, wherein you can ask anyone for 15 minutes of chat time, and they will make time for you no matter what. This was a very welcoming work culture to enter into, and most interns took advantage of the coffee chat culture to talk to someone in a field that interests them.