American Express

I had a great and supportive team and project to work on during the summer.

I learned a lot of tools, such as RESTful APIs, MongoDB, and Java Spring Frameworks, that have been extremely helpful in finding another job.

The food was alright, but you had to pay for it. Perhaps due to budget cuts?

I was mostly busy with productive work during the internship.

I got lucky with my team placement. Many other interns did quite literally nothing, which is a waste of money for the company and a huge opportunity cost to those who did nothing. However, many of the other interns seemed to lack motivation, so it may have been their own faults and what they wanted anyway.

Phoenix is most likely the worst location to be in. It was too hot and extremely boring. Too many retired people everywhere and trashy people in the area. It is considered dangerous to be outside for longer than an hour during the summer. It reached 115 degrees while I was there.

Way too many domestic employees from U of A and ASU. Given the pay that they offer to interns, I'm surprised the company doesn't scope out to schools that actually have legitimate CS programs.

If you come in, expect to meet a lot of students from ASU and U of A who talk more than they do.

The company hosted hackathon was quite possibly the most disorganized event I've been to in my life. The winners of the "hackathon" presented an idea and no implementation of it and still won. Doesn't make sense to me. One of the judges was an HR. What would she/he know?

A lot of unknown/stupid budget constraints that can cut into the technology that you could use in your projects.

Excessive use of contractors. It felt like less than 25% of the employees there were actually full-time employees. Therefore, lack of culture.

Look to other schools to recruit from. ASU and U of A are not known for their CS programs.

Don't waste money on interns who do nothing and invest the money into upgrading internal technology. The company is already falling apart.

Please be more thorough/selective with the selection criteria if you want to preserve the company's future.