Software Development Engineering Intern Review
at Expedia Group
Internship (1 Month+)
Software Engineering
London
Review Submitted: July 2026
Overall Rating
4.5 /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
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Overview of Role
4.5/5
-
Skills Development
4.5/5
-
Support and Guidance
4/5
-
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.
I'm on the ML Platform team at Expedia Group, specifically the part that looks after the model lifecycle side of things. The platform is what teams across the company use to deploy and manage their machine learning models in production, so my work sits in the infrastructure layer rather than in building models themselves. My main project is removing a single-model constraint in the deployment service so that multiple models can be served through one deployment, which is a meaningful piece of work for how the platform scales.
Day to day it's a mix of digging through the existing codebase to understand how deployments actually work under the hood, prototyping and testing serving setups locally, writing up design and inception documents before anything gets built, and syncing with the senior engineers who own the areas my work touches. There's a daily standup and regular catch-ups with my manager, and most of the day goes on either building the proof of concept or working out the right approach with the people who know the system best.
Day to day it's a mix of digging through the existing codebase to understand how deployments actually work under the hood, prototyping and testing serving setups locally, writing up design and inception documents before anything gets built, and syncing with the senior engineers who own the areas my work touches. There's a daily standup and regular catch-ups with my manager, and most of the day goes on either building the proof of concept or working out the right approach with the people who know the system best.
Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?
Yes, more than I expected going in. I was handed a real workstream rather than throwaway intern tasks, and it's something the team genuinely cares about getting right, so it sits on the roadmap as a priority piece rather than a nice-to-have. I own the proof of concept and drove the initial design document through to approval myself. That said, it isn't responsibility without support. The overall direction and the sensible order to tackle things in comes from the senior engineers on the team, and I check in regularly rather than being left to sink or swim, which feels like about the right balance for an internship.
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?
Yes, on both fronts. The biggest jump has been on the ML infrastructure side. I came in with a full-stack and general engineering background, but working on the deployment service has pushed me deep into how models actually get served in production, including multi-model serving with Triton and the plumbing around it. Getting that working end-to-end locally meant properly understanding a large existing codebase rather than just my own code, which is a different skill to building something from scratch.
Beyond the technical side, I've sharpened up on the things that surround the code. Writing design and inception documents to a standard where senior engineers will sign off on them, taking feedback and iterating on an approach rather than defending a first draft, and knowing when to check in versus when to push on myself. Working out the right questions to ask the people who own a system, and doing enough of my own digging first so those conversations are worth their time, has probably been the quietest but most useful thing I've picked up.
Beyond the technical side, I've sharpened up on the things that surround the code. Writing design and inception documents to a standard where senior engineers will sign off on them, taking feedback and iterating on an approach rather than defending a first draft, and knowing when to check in versus when to push on myself. Working out the right questions to ask the people who own a system, and doing enough of my own digging first so those conversations are worth their time, has probably been the quietest but most useful thing I've picked up.
How would you rate the training provided during your experience?
4/5
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
5/5
Support and Guidance
How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?
A good amount, and importantly the right kind. I was never left completely on my own with something I couldn't handle, but I also wasn't micromanaged. My manager set me up with a real project and clear priorities, then trusted me to get on with it while staying available when I needed to talk something through. Regular catch-ups meant nothing drifted too far before it got course-corrected.
The wider team has been just as useful in a different way. Because my project touches areas that senior engineers own, a lot of my guidance has come from them directly, whether that's the sensible order to tackle things in or a steer on the right technical approach before I go and build the wrong thing. People have been willing to give me their time as long as I've done my own homework first, which is fair. Between the manager keeping the overall shape on track and the senior engineers guiding the technical detail, the support has covered both ends well.
The wider team has been just as useful in a different way. Because my project touches areas that senior engineers own, a lot of my guidance has come from them directly, whether that's the sensible order to tackle things in or a steer on the right technical approach before I go and build the wrong thing. People have been willing to give me their time as long as I've done my own homework first, which is fair. Between the manager keeping the overall shape on track and the senior engineers guiding the technical detail, the support has covered both ends well.
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?
4/5
Company Culture
What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?
Relaxed but focused. The team I'm on takes the work seriously without being tense about it, and there's a genuine openness to questions, which matters a lot as an intern. Nobody makes you feel like you're wasting their time by asking, as long as you've had a proper go yourself first. The atmosphere leans engineering-led and pragmatic, people care about getting things right rather than about hierarchy, and being remote-friendly means the day has a sensible rhythm to it rather than everyone glued to a desk. Overall it's the kind of place where you can get on with real work and feel like part of the team quickly.
If you've been into the office and have a stronger read on the wider company feel, that's worth adding in your own words, since the paragraph above is honest about your immediate team but the company is obviously bigger than that.
If you've been into the office and have a stronger read on the wider company feel, that's worth adding in your own words, since the paragraph above is honest about your immediate team but the company is obviously bigger than that.
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?
3/5
How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?
3/5
Overall Experience
To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?
A lot. The thing that's made it enjoyable is that the work is real. I'm on a priority project with genuine ownership rather than being parked on filler tasks, and that makes the day worth showing up for. It sits right in the area I want to build a career in, production ML infrastructure, so the learning has felt directly useful rather than incidental. The team culture has helped too, relaxed enough that asking questions is easy but serious enough that the work actually matters. The mix of digging into a large codebase, prototyping, and working things through with senior engineers keeps it varied rather than repetitive. If I'm being balanced, a few weeks in there are still stretches of grinding through unfamiliar code where progress feels slow, but that's the nature of the work rather than a complaint.
Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship
5/5
Please rate how your experience met your expectations
5/5
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend Expedia Group to a friend?
Yes
What advice would you give to others applying to Expedia Group
Come in ready to work with a large existing codebase rather than expecting to build everything from scratch. A lot of the early value is in understanding how what's already there fits together, so treat reading other people's code as a real skill to lean into rather than a chore to rush past. It pays off fast.
Do your own homework before you go to the senior engineers. People here are generous with their time when you've clearly had a proper go yourself first, so turn up to those conversations with specific questions and what you've already tried, not just "how does this work." That's the difference between guidance that moves you forward and a steer you could have found yourself.
Ask questions early rather than sitting on being stuck. The culture is open enough that nobody minds, and a quick check-in beats quietly building the wrong thing for two days. Get comfortable with the balance between pushing on yourself and knowing when to pull someone in.
And be genuine about the area you want to be in. The internship gives you real ownership, so the more the work lines up with what you actually care about, the more you'll get out of it. If you know you want production and infrastructure over pure research, say so, because that's the kind of steer that shapes what you end up working on.
Do your own homework before you go to the senior engineers. People here are generous with their time when you've clearly had a proper go yourself first, so turn up to those conversations with specific questions and what you've already tried, not just "how does this work." That's the difference between guidance that moves you forward and a steer you could have found yourself.
Ask questions early rather than sitting on being stuck. The culture is open enough that nobody minds, and a quick check-in beats quietly building the wrong thing for two days. Get comfortable with the balance between pushing on yourself and knowing when to pull someone in.
And be genuine about the area you want to be in. The internship gives you real ownership, so the more the work lines up with what you actually care about, the more you'll get out of it. If you know you want production and infrastructure over pure research, say so, because that's the kind of steer that shapes what you end up working on.
Future Career Prospects
Please rate the future employment prospects at Expedia Group
5/5
Did you receive an offer to return as a graduate?
Waiting to hear
