Intern Software Developer Review

I really enjoyed the internship. My favourite part was the "Vacathon", a three-day hackathon for all the UK-based interns working over the summer. We worked quite late into the night developing our project, eating a large range of complimentary food. At the end we watched all the groups' presentations which were generally well-presented and amusing. Some of the projects were very impressive.

I felt very welcome in the office, right from day one. Whenever I had completed or part-completed a task, I was given honest feedback regarding my solution.

My manager was great. She gave clear instruction as to what was required, and gave me an appropriate level of support throughout the projects. I was always given an opportunity to work individually first, so that I could try to work things out by myself. This was very instructive. Whenever I asked for assistance however, she would be available very soon after and would take the time to explain things in sufficient detail.

I had enough to do each day. The work I was doing varied quite a lot, from working through the codebase and writing code myself, to developing and executing tests. Some of the tasks were very stimulating and others were less exciting. I was often told what I'd be doing once the current task was complete, so I could begin working on the next thing as soon as it was appropriate.

The placement was designed well, so that within the first few days of arriving, after the training project, I was given a project to work on that was completely mine. Of course I had to get the approval of other colleagues, but I was the only person developing this part of the code.

I certainly gained a good understanding of the development process for software, and undertook various parts of the process during my internship. I also learnt a few more programming languages including C and Javascript. Working in an office whose staff had a lot of experience in software development, I learnt a lot of skills relevant to developing software as part of a large team.

The office had a pleasant atmosphere. All the staff were friendly. A few of us walked to a nearby supermarket to get our lunch each day, so I got to know some of my colleagues quite well. In the office, it is very much work-driven and focused, but you could always ask people for help if that was required.

The organisation was very good. All emails before the placement were promptly answered. On arrival, I was given a company introduction by my manager before starting on a training exercise - my workstation was already set-up. There was a trip to the larger office, and the travel and accommodation for this was organised well in advance.

Quite a lot of time was dedicated to personal training. During the trip to the larger office, we gave small presentations and received useful feedback from them. At the start of the internship, there was a Starter project dedicated entirely to training, and from that point onwards there was always enough time to learn things properly.

I was working in one of the smaller offices with only three interns in total that summer. We briefly visited one of the larger offices with more interns and the social scene there seemed like great fun with various activities occurring each day. In our office however it was (slightly) less exciting and we certainly didn't do as much as the other interns.

Metaswitch provided us with subsidized accommodation throughout our internships. This accommodation was of good quality, and with one of the places breakfast and dinner was provided! There was a nearby Sainsbury's supermarket, so food could be obtained at a reasonable price. We went to the cinema a couple of times, but this was a little expensive.

In the smaller office I was working at, there were no scheduled activities outside of business hours, with the exception of a single party. This was actually the annual Christmas party, would you believe! We went for socials at lunchtime quite a few times, however. I understand that the larger offices have a bigger social scene for interns.