Placement and internship case studies

I was curious about how a job in a software company would actually work. I also wanted to find out what kind of skills I would need to develop in order to become an effective employee as I look for a job after university.

Department email

My role was to look at the existing products offered by the company and evaluate them both standalone and in comparison to other companies offering similar products. I would then provide feedback on how our software could be modified in order to improve it.

I would either work at an office or at home, and I would go through a list of topics that other employees of the company think should be tested and evaluated. Towards the end of the internship I also started to work on learning some new programming languages and trying to illustrate some of the improvements I suggest by actually making them happen.

I really enjoyed the range of different things within the company that I was looking at, and the opportunity to evaluate them objectively and see my suggested improvements be put into use.

It was sometimes difficult to properly communicate with the team because of remote working. Some colleagues were even in different countries. This often acted as a barrier when trying to put across my point of view as someone with very little experience compared to team members with 20+ years of experience under their belt.

This internship has really solidified my plan to go into software engineering as a career in the future, as I have really enjoyed working in the field and am eager to carry that on going forward.

Even if you don't think you're the right person, or you're worried you don't have the required skillset. Please just try and apply for the internship. There's always a chance you'll be accepted and the experience you gain could be really life changing for you. So don't let the self doubts hold you back!

Following the internship I was offered a really flexible permanent position at the company and I'm really looking forward to carrying on working there as I go through the last two years of uni and transition into more of a development role.