Software Developer (intern) Review

I really enjoyed the internship and Softwire made lots of effort to ensure that was the case, despite the remote nature. As a welcome event they would normally take the interns to the pub after their first day, so instead did a virtual event on discord with all of the interns and some regular employees. There was also a very relaxed atmosphere about everything which made it a much nice place to work, even if just remotely.

I had weekly meetings with my line manager to talk about what I had been doing and how I was getting on with the internship in a relaxed atmosphere. My trainer also checked up on me that I wasn't getting stuck or bored with the task I had been assigned, and also to check that I always had something to be getting on with. My past experience meant the training tasks we did were a bit too simple to begin with, but this led to me helping other members of my team instead.

The internship started with a two week bootcamp in the language being used for the main project. This involved a range of interesting tasks to complete to get used to the features of the language and make sure everyone had a base level of experience. My trainer was also very good at explaining best practices I had not run into before and finding relevant websites with more detailed explanations where useful. The training tasks were a bit basic to begin with but still helpful.

I gained a lot of experience with software development best practices and how teams can collaborate on projects effectively. The tools being used were also very common in the industry so I am likely to use the experience I gained in the future too. I don't expect this experience to help my studies particularly as it was all very practical advice and my course is too theoretical for it to come into use, but I expect to use these skills once I graduate.

The internship lasted eight weeks and was quite well divided into stages. The first two weeks were entirely focused on training tasks to help everyone get an understanding, then the next six weeks were focused entirely on the project. There were demonstrations of what we had done so far every two weeks, which helped to split the work into batches to get complete for the next demo, although the exact date of the demo each fortnight moved a little so wasn't completely fixed.

I found that it was a very relaxed and fun atmosphere, which was partly due to how my team interacted and also the company wide morale events which Softwire organised. I felt slightly isolated from other interns outside of my team due to the remote nature of the internship, although I am not sure how this could have been better dealt with as we were encouraged to attend events. Perhaps getting to talk to other interns more would have been better but it was still a welcoming atmosphere overall.

The first two weeks were entirely about training us with the tools we would be using so that we could work on the project more effectively. At several points on the project my trainer would invite everyone in the team to listen to him walk through and explain parts of the project that we might not otherwise see but would probably have to work with at some point in our career, helping us to understand how these particular tools worked.

I got a reasonable idea of what it is like to work on a project at the company as part of the team, with several of the methodologies used for working and communicating in a team. This was slightly hindered by the internship being remote as usually we would be working near each other or looking at the same board, making it easier to point out issues or discuss ideas. I only got a small insight into what it was like in our trainer's role, allocating and breaking up tasks for the rest of the team.

I think that I would have gotten a much better idea of the company culture had I been there in person. Working remotely, I pretty much only spoke to my trainer, my line manager, and the other interns in my team. Although there were several company wide morale events, only a few of the other interns went to these so I think I would have gotten more involved with these events and talking to more people at the company had this been in person.

I enjoyed working on the project and the type of problems that came up as we went. I also liked working in a team which I have only had limited opportunity to do while studying when on a small group project. This has helped confirm that I would like to follow this career path and work in software development in the future so I will hopefully pursue this. It was also helpful seeing the more practical applications side of computer science rather than seeing primarily theory based content on my course.