Software Academy Intern Review
at Capital One
Internship (1 Month+)
Computer Systems Engineering
Nottingham
Review Submitted: September 2023
Overall Rating
4.9 /5
The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!
5/5
-
Overview of Role
4.5/5
-
Skills Development
5/5
-
Support and Guidance
5/5
-
Company Culture
5/5
-
Overall Experience
5/5
-
Future Career Prospects
Overview of Role
Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.
As a software engineer, the day-to-day activities included participating in the daily morning standups and other agile ceremonies that occur on a sprint basis. I also participated in ideation and refinement sessions within the team. The rest of the day was focused on completing my intern project and balancing that with a project I worked on outside my team with other interns. As an intern, I was expected to spend 70% of my time on my intern project and the rest on the project outside my team.
Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?
I was given full ownership over my intern project and the objectives were loosely defined, which meant that I could come up with my own ideas and solutions and receive feedback from the team. My team had also prepared plenty of stretch tasks in case I finished too early. I also got to take on the role of scrum master for a sprint during my internship which included taking ownership of and organising the sprint planning and sprint retrospective agile ceremonies.
Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was
5/5
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?
I learned how to use React and learned a lot about testing. Prior to the internship, I had minimal knowledge of unit testing and no knowledge of functional testing. After the internship, I feel more confident in my ability to write tests. I was able to learn about best practices and improve my test cases by working closely with software engineers and quality engineers in the team. I also got hands-on experience with the CI/CD tools and learned about AWS components.
How would you rate the training provided during your experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of personal / soft skills during the experience?
4/5
Please rate how these skills have helped you in your career development
4/5
Support and Guidance
How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?
The support was phenomenal. The whole team were supportive, and I always had someone to consult. I was assigned a mentor whom I could ask for help whenever I needed to guide me on the right track. Since my mentor was a recent graduate student, I felt at ease and felt that they could relate well to my experiences. I also took the guidance of quality engineers on my team when finalising my test cases, which I found very helpful.
How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?
5/5
How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?
5/5
Company Culture
What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?
The company had the best work-life balance I'd seen. Everyone was extremely friendly and was always enthusiastic to share about what they were working on. The team were also keen to drop what they were doing and help me if I needed anything. Several intern events were organised, almost on a weekly basis, which shows that the company really cares about its employees. The office was open and wasn’t split into different cubicles, which provided a very friendly atmosphere, and you always bump into people you know.
How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?
5/5
How would you rate the social opportunities?
5/5
How would you rate the diversity initiatives?
5/5
How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?
5/5
Overall Experience
To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?
I thoroughly enjoyed my placement and learnt much more than I thought possible in the 10 weeks. I felt very welcomed from the start of the internship and felt like a valued member of the team throughout. I also learnt a lot about other roles within the company, which would have been difficult if I had not taken this internship opportunity. The great company culture and work/life balance were definitely a big surprise given that it is a big financial institution.
Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship
5/5
Please rate how your experience met your expectations
5/5
Future Career Prospects
Please rate the future employment prospects at Capital One
5/5
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend Capital One to a friend?
Yes
What advice would you give to others applying to Capital One
I would advise others to reach out to current employees to learn about the different 'outcome teams' within Capital One to find out which team might be best suited for them.
In terms of skills, I think that having a willingness to learn and work with each other is a must because the role of a software engineer requires you to tackle new challenges on a daily basis in areas which you may have no prior experience with. Particularly at Capital One, there is an emphasis on working together and pairing on sprint stories.
In terms of skills, I think that having a willingness to learn and work with each other is a must because the role of a software engineer requires you to tackle new challenges on a daily basis in areas which you may have no prior experience with. Particularly at Capital One, there is an emphasis on working together and pairing on sprint stories.
