Financial Software Engineering Intern Review

I can't wait to go back to work there full time.

My mentor would stop what he was doing every time I asked him a question. He also would check up how I was doing/feeling most days and had a big meeting about it ones a week. I saw my supervior less, but he was always will to help and made sure he explained concepts I did not know in meetings.

I was busy, but enjoyed it. I was busy for 9 hours a day - but this means I produced an actual complete product by the end. I did not feel overwhelmed by the work, but was always busy.

People I worked with gave me complete ownership of my project. This year high management limited what interns were authorised to do in terms of touching the production environment. My team treated this as a technicality and I still did what I would have before, through there accounts.

I study computer science, which is a very academic subject and students are expected to pick up practical skills along the way by themselves - this rarely happens. This skills I have learnt will make university coursework much easier and will help a huge amount in getting a job.

Dull to fun is a very specific metric for atmosphere. It was very conducive to work. It was not "fun" in the sense that people had little time for pointless chatter - but the work was fun. Everyone had a lot of time for me to work shadow and explain how the business worked and their role within it. People also had a lot of time to help me with my project and talk about software engineering practices which did not technically help my project (so not help me add value to the company during the internship) but help my personal profession development. There was no real pressure put on me from my team. Everyone was very friendly and knew that providing a comfortable atmosphere where I could ask for help would produce the best results.

On a high level, the scheme was well organised with weekly talks from heads of departments and a large number of networking and profession development sessions (including trips around London). In my team my mentor was very good - there was little to organise as the project planning started while I was there so that I could take an active part in it.

The firm spent 2 weeks on training at the start of the internship. This was 2 days training about the company and general information about the market place which would effect all interns. There rest was mostly on Bloomberg proprietary technologies. Knowledge on these is vital to work in R&D, but not that useful outside the company. General software engineering skills were expected to be picked up on the job and I found everyone in my team had the time to talk to me about that. The company has a lot of internal training material which I was allowed to review during my day and there were a number of training sessions that were put on for all of R&D which I could attend. They put on as much as they could to maximise my output during my time there and made other things accessible if I wanted them. My manager was happy for me to spend as much time on these as I wanted.

I have already accepted a full time job with them.

I would spend 3 nights a week socialising with work colleges. This was with both other interns and full time employees. The person who interviewed me bought me at least 6 pints. Everyone was very friendly. I went to a team meal as well.

Cheap places could be found, which is what I did. Others liked to go to more exciting places which were more expensive.

See social scene answer.

Many sports clubs, I took part in a volunteering scheme and there was loads of invitations to networking events, art events, etc.