Software Academy Intern (Software Developer Engineer) Review

My role was to be a Software Developer in a Services team. We worked using agile methodologies, always having a daily Stand Up as well as having Planning, Refinement and Retro sessions for each sprint. For us interns, we had to balance two projects - an intern/graduate-run project and our own in-team project. We would work on assigned tasks, and report back to the team.

I really have learnt a lot about what Software Engineering is like in a professional setting and have been able to further develop existing skills. Moreover, I have been able to go through the processes involved in Production deployments of changes I have made to certain services. Also, I had the opportunity to work with Jira, an agile project management tool. Furthermore, I had time to practice more of the AWS Cloud Practitioner Course!

I felt like I was given quite a lot of responsibility, especially when I was making changes that went live into Production for customers to use. I was helping directly with sprint goals most of the time, so these tasks were time critical too. Also, these were tasks that were normally done by the team (not just a side project), so I was really able to get stuck in meaningful tasks.

I received lots of guidance in my time here for the internship. From the beginning, I was assigned a mentor and buddy who were able to guide me and explain certain concepts I was not familiar with. Furthermore, I was assigned a manager who was very focused on helping me make the most of my time in the internship. They were constructive too, helping me work on areas that I could improve on!

The general culture here was amazing - very friendly and productive. We not only just got work done, but also made time for each other by booking in social meetings at the end of the day. Also, I found that people in my team were willing to help me if I had any doubt, and they would take action (i.e. book a meeting, or send a message if they were busy), making me feel welcome.

I really enjoyed it! The experience and advice that I have taken on board has been invaluable! The company culture played a big part in this, even when all of this was remote work, and the programme team who arranged this internship really kept us engaged throughout! I would most definitely go back! There are so many more opportunities to explore in this company, especially for my role.

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I would definitely suggest going through and trying out some HackerRank challenges/tasks which might be helpful to get an understanding on the level they expect for the coding assessment. Also, I would recommend to always be inquisitive - don't be afraid to ask questions!