Software intern Review

Very much enjoyed the placement. The work environment was really good, as were the perks (free lunch, free coffee, days/evenings out etc.).

Immediately felt like part of the team -- I felt like a new hire, not an intern.

My manager was very proactive in making sure I was making the most of my placement, despite it being slightly difficult for him to find useful things for me to do due to the constraints of the project the team was working on (it was difficult to bring me up to speed on everything in the time I had).

I rarely felt like I didn't have anything to do. When I did, I always felt I could ask my line manager what I needed to be doing, and he'd find something useful.

Got code into production on my second day. I always felt that my contribution was valued -- in fact, at times early on I was slightly alarmed at how much responsibility I seemed to have already, but that definitely pushed me to do some good work.

Learnt a lot of very useful practical software engineering skills that my university course just doesn't cover. For example, although I knew the basic mechanics of Unit Testing, in hindsight I really didn't have any idea how to properly apply those ideas to a real workflow. The skills I learnt will be moderately useful for my degree but they'll definitely be essential once I start my career.

Nerf guns on every desk, ping pong, foosball, video games etc. Despite this, there was a good working atmosphere when it came down to actually doing something productive. I felt it struck a good balance and kept me reasonably motivated.

There were regular activities planned for the interns such as meetings with managers of different divisions of the company to give us an overview of the company structure. I felt these were slightly front-loaded, and fell off a bit towards the end of the internship, it might have been nice to have a couple more nearer the end. Each intern had a line manager and from what I gathered they all did very well in making sure the interns got the best out of the placements.

Most of the learning was 'on the job', but my line manager was really helpful and took a lot of time to explain how things were working and give me 1 to 1 feedback on how I could improve. There were a few "code katas" where you could pair up with another random programmer and solve some sort of software engineering challenge, then meet up with others later to discuss it, which were good but not brilliantly organised.

I was made a job offer at the end of my placement for when I graduate, which I've accepted.

There were fairly frequent pub trips, as well as company days out/events organised as part of the 'Feel Good Fund'. We were also given a small budget to organise an intern evening out, which we used on bowling and a nice meal.

Cambridge isn't known as a particularly cheap area to live in. Luckily I'm a student here so I managed to get a decent deal on accommodation with my college over the summer.

Cambridge's nightlife is not known for its quality. However, there are plenty of lovely (if sometimes expensive) pubs, bars and restaurants.

There were various company events such as punting and frisbee, but as a smallish company there wasn't a huge amount of variety.