Technology Intern (SWE) Review

The internship was fantastic, we were given projects that will actually go into deployment which meant our code had to be of that standard and we felt like we were doing real work not just something that gets thrown out after we leave. We were organised into intern teams which each had their own project and group of senior engineers that advised and helped us so each person could really contribute a lot to the project.

We were treated really well by Amex: being given lots of Amex branded swag and extras. Moreover we were encouraged to have virtual (I was on the internship in 2020...) "coffee chats" which were a great opportunity to learn more about different parts of the business you weren't working with. Personally I found a lot of value in talking to the ML team (which was possible even though they are based out of the US office and I was working with the UK office) as it was a subject I wanted to find out more about. I had a couple coffee chats with people from that department, a couple who studied the same as me in uni so it was interesting to find out what their path into their job was

In the beginning there was a bit of a lack of communication as we were given a huge amount of independence and some our supervisor's weren't massively involved except when we had problems. We took these comments to our senior engineers and they were happy to put in more effort into being involved in our project by coming to DSU's and in other ways so it was solved pretty easily. Again, as I was on the internship in 2020 this was probably a unique problem in this time but it was pretty easily solved in the end.

I always had work to do so I was never left feeling like I couldn't do anything but, at the same time, we ended at 5 everyday so it was never the case that we had to work overtime because the workload was too great. There were also many events organised by the campus recruitment team and by the tech department so we also had the opportunity for a lot of fun breaks so I never felt overworked.

My intern team was given pretty much full responsibility for our project, we would get our requirements from the senior engineers and have full freedom to chose how we solve the problem (as long as it fitted with Amex's tech stack which in our department was made up of Spring Boot and kafka - a Java tech stack). This gave us a very realistic experience of how SWE jobs would be when full time as we had requirement changes and problems of communication of what our supervisor wanted and what we thought he wanted. At the end of the day, we probably benefited greatly from that.

My degree is not computer science so this benefitted me greatly in seeing how to write production code, see what contemporary technologies are being used and see how working in a group of motivated people (rather than people who don't put in any effort as is typical of uni projects). If I have another programming project in my university studies, all the understanding of how to write production grade code will greatly help me write code that is easy for my other non CS classmates understand. Also having knowledge of agile will definitely change how I approach the organisation of such a group project.

Amex's atmosphere is really nice - everyone is warm and welcoming and more than willing to help you out even if you are not from their department. We had a lot of contact with senior leaders which greatly enhanced the experience as we could see how well amex was liked at all levels of the company. It never felt like there were barriers between you and the senior leaders that stopped you from asking them questions or talking to them like any other colleague

The internship was very well organised given the mitigating circumstances in 2020. I was really impressed by how they managed to adapt to having everyone being remote. The whole onboarding process was really smooth and I ended up feeling like I didn't miss out on too much from the in-office experience. We also had some nice extra activities such as a coding challenge and some charity work which were nice breaks to the work time.

The company really wants you to succeed and they encourage you to take coffee chats with colleagues froma round the business so you can learn and ask about what they do and who they are. If you only know the area you are interested in finding out more about you can just ask the campus recruitment team if they know someone in that area and they always are able to find people who can talk to you about whatever it is you are interested in.

Amex really push their culture on you and it really seems like a great place to work. From the top of the organisation to the bottom there's an atmosphere of inclusion and care. Even in the hard times of Covid 19, the company didn't lay off any employees, instead looking toward the future and taking the loss for the duration of the recovery period. I am not sure how likely getting an offer is but i would definitely take it if offered.

Amex organised a large number of events throughout the internship so there were many opportunities to get involved during and outside of working hours. There were a number of quizzes (hosted by both grads and interns) and other social events hosted through webex - the video call software used by amex). In addition there are a number of colleague groups that you can get involved in that allow you to interact with people with similar interests from across the business.

There were relatively few opportunities outside of work perhaps because we were remote? Generally most days were working form 9 to 5 and then we would end and have no more interaction after that unless we had a training course which was being run for american interns as well and thus was at night for us. I don't particularly know what else could have been done given the circumstances but it never really felt like a problem to me personally