Offering prospects - Software internship review

03.05.2024

Author: Jonas Blum

As a computer science student at the University of Zurich, a 3-month software internship was a compulsory part of my study programme. To make it easier to find an internship employer, there is an official list of internship companies.
However, many of the companies on this list do not explicitly advertise an internship - jls is the exception. Their advert is well designed and fits perfectly with the internship at the University of Zurich.
The application, the interview, the signing of the employment contract and the registration of the internship with the university went absolutely smoothly, which impressed me very much and I found very pleasant.

Organising appointments within the company is straightforward thanks to access to all internal calendars. The challenge is to coordinate appointments with external people, which often leads to many emails or phone calls.
The appointment scheduling tool is designed to minimise these problems.
How the tool works: The organiser proposes several appointments, which automatically appear as provisional blockers in the calendars of all those involved. Those invited can then accept or decline these appointments. Once everyone has responded, the organiser selects the final appointment, whereupon all unselected blocker appointments are automatically deleted. 
Although the concept seems simple, the technical implementation requires careful integration into the Office 365 calendar, including a login procedure.
Together with my two supervisors, Florian and Fabio, I was able to successfully implement this project from planning to completion within 3 months. At the end of the internship, I was able to present my tool to the jls employees. 

My internship took place in the summer, which is also the time when most jls events take place. I was delighted to be invited to all the events and took the opportunity to attend them all.
The first event, the 2nd quarterly event, took place in my first week at work. I got to know the company better and also gained an insight into the other departments at jls.
The jls boat race was definitely one of the highlights of my internship. After work on a Tuesday, we floated down the Limmat in several boats.
I appreciated the opportunity to take part in sporting activities with other employees. I took part in jls bouldering, two spinning sessions - a popular trend sport - and the jls boot camp, a full-body workout led by Alessandra.
The highlight of the events took place in the last week of August. The nearshore employees from jls came to visit and 3 events took place in one week.
 On Monday there was a mini golf tournament, which I was lucky enough to win 😊 
On Wednesday we met up for a barbecue on the Uetliberg and on Friday the jls summer event took place with all employees & families in Lucerne.
All in all, I really enjoyed the events and I'm already looking forward to the summer and the associated events.

As I enjoyed working at jls and had already gained some insights into other projects during my internship, I quickly realised that I wanted to continue working at jls alongside my studies. Discussions with other former interns at jls also reinforced my decision.
I have now been working at jls for almost a year and have already been involved in several customer projects. The flexible working hours make it easy to combine my work with my studies; I can reduce my workload during the examination phase and then make up for the time I've missed during the semester break.

I am very happy to have applied to jls a year ago. The internship gave me valuable work experience and I met great new people. 
I really appreciate getting a job offer afterwards and thus being an integral part of jls. The flexible working hours, which fit in well with my studies, and the varied work on projects that bring real benefits to customers are two things that are very important to me. Both points are fulfilled by jls, which makes my work a lot of fun.

• Be open to really immersing yourself in the company and be sure to take part in all events, where you can get to know many employees.
• Ask your supervisor if you get stuck. They will be happy to help you and ultimately you are doing the internship to learn new things.
• As a student at the University of Zurich, this is the right place for you. jls has already given many students the opportunity to complete an internship and has a lot of experience in this area. Many of the employees themselves started as interns at jls.
• Come to the office as often as possible. At jls, you are generally allowed to work 60% from home, but it is much more pleasant to work in the office and socialise with other employees during breaks.
• Keep working at jls: the opportunity to work 40% flexibly alongside your studies, gain valuable work experience and earn money at the same time is a good deal in my opinion 😊