Software Engineering Intern Review

I enjoyed this internship to the max because even thought it was virtual Amex made sure that we had plenty opportunities to learn new skills, further develop the ones we already had and just enjoy ourselves in general. Everyone is approachable, even though I've never met someone, sending them an invite for a meeting or a simple message on slack, they responded to any question I had as soon as they had the time and if they didn't have an answer they redirect you to someone who most certainly does.

The colleagues are definitely what makes american express unique in terms of the work. Everyone is comfortable to talk about anything, everyone is willing to schedule coffee chats to talk about whatever you wish and when it comes to asking for help, they are all incredible, no matter who you contact, senior or not, they make the time to help you no matter your position. There is no 'position separation' you can never tell how high or low someone is in the company because everyone acts like family.

Support was offered at all times me as an intern deemed it necessary and more. When I say more I do not mean they were bugging us, they just check in with how we're progressing in a very friendly, family like way and based on your update they ask whether you need help with anything. If you message anyone that you need help with something they will make the time to help you or redirect you to someone who is the best at whatever it is you asked for help for.

The work and life balance was absolutely spot on, the work is incredibly engaging, especially for an intern. They offered us the chance to work on a real life problem's solution which was exciting to work on but they strongly insisted on us not working outside work hours and take time off, no matter how invested we are in the project. They schedule in activities such as health sessions and fun quizzes, but also always keep the work a challenge for us to develop.

I was places in a team of 7, and we were given the problem we were supposed to solve as well as a draft diagram and idea of how to solve it, however it was up to us, as an intern team to bring that idea to life and not just that but come up with any extra features or completely change the idea if we wished to do so, as long as we had good reasons to do so.

American Express offered so many opportunities to grow not only in tech and hard skills but soft and personal skills too. I went into this internship having 0 zero knowledge of certain technologies that I ended up using on a daily basis and at the end I was pretty much proficient. For soft skills, I've learned a lot in terms of what it actually takes to be a software engineer and how to actually approach a project with the end product in mind while still coming up with improvements and reshaping it along the way in order to get the best outcome possible.

It was fun to work from the very beginning when we had ice-breakers and other introductory activities to get to know the team, they made it easy to integrate in the company and fun to work with in general because of the challenges, because of the learning opportunities, as well as development of the current product, the people always being a pleasure to work with and always making sure that we are enjoying it and checking in.

Given this was going to be a remote internship I was quite skeptical but amex organisation but just simply flawless, we had daily stand ups to know what everyone was doing, everyone did their job and always made themselves available to talk in case of an issue or in case we wanted to discuss the direction. We had scheduled 'show and tells' to show what we had already made and discuss feedback as well as progress.

The entire first week was strictly training and development and making sure we know how to plan, how to work and if not, everything was provided. We had access to amex only trainings such as the ones on the amex square, as well as a license to other learning environments such as pluralsight. Further personal training and development that was provided also came from amex colleagues, if you simply preferred to learn something from someone, they would happily help.

I am yet to receive a response but they were very supportive throughout and future employments or graduate schemes seem achievable and everyone seemed to be very keen on working with us interns in the future. They spoke about the work we'd do when we'd get an offer, they spoke about the atmosphere then and were very welcoming in general, making us interns feel part of this company and feel like we are being considered and thought of.

I found that almost everyone was very like-minded and I say almost not because someone wasn't but because I didn't get to speak to every other fellow intern, but the ones I spoke to were all open-minded, open to talk about anything, ready to help if they could. We all learned something from each other. We all had the mindset of wanting to learn and do more even though we were of different backgrounds such as maths, physics, cs etc.

internship was online due to covid

internship was online due to covid

Once again, this was an online internship due to covid19 but American Express managed to provide us with events such as hackathons and pub quizzes, which many people attended and they all made them fun to take part in. Also, the work life balance was great meaning, I've always had the time to focus on any of my own activities if I wished to do so, and there was never a time when I wanted to do something but didn't have the time.