Engineering Internships: Three Intern Programmes that thrived despite Covid-19

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some engineering internships have taken place over the spring-summer semesters. Even though many businesses have been closed this year due to coronavirus restrictions, numerous ESILV students were able to pursue their work during the pandemic.

With all the COVID-19 restrictions, the summer of 2020 could have been a washout for so many ESILV students. But plenty of them managed to nail down internships and find opportunities that correspond to their training, gaining valuable hands-on experience and expanding their professional networks. Here are three meaningful work placements ESILV’s future engineers landed this summer.

Data scientist at BureauxLocaux

Hany Akoury, class of 2020, started his internships at Bureaux Locaux in February 2020. Bureaux Locaux is a reference website for commercial real estate transactions in France and it provides a digital platform designed to sell, rent, evaluate the properties from the office market.

“My internship experience at Bureauxlocaux was fulfilling on many levels. I got to work with a young and very professional team in an agile environment. My typical day was arriving early in the morning to make the best out of my day and plan it, have a standup (small daily gathering) with the team, and then go on with my tasks and different meetings. By working in an agile environment, I learned that it is mandatory to communicate clearly and daily on our progress to move forward towards our goals. Thanks to the team, I was able to develop my skills efficiently throughout a fantastic project.” (Hany Akoury, class of 2020)

Remote work requires and regular communication: Hany made sure he connected with his work peers and felt like he was part of a team when working remotely.

“COVID-19 did somehow change the way I worked during four months of internship, but not so much. As a data scientist, part of the development team, working from home wasn’t a significant change for us other than the fact that we couldn’t physically meet. To work efficiently, we set some ground functioning rules. Communication was vital: weekly online meetings with the president, as well as the director, to motivate the team and make sure we’re hanging in there. Motivation and self-discipline were our best chances of making it through these hard times, and in fact, we made it.” (Hany Akoury, class of 2020)

His experience working hands-on on different products/models allowed Hany to develop personal and professional skills.

“During my internship, I assessed mainly two things. First, I learned that trusting your intern is very important. It’s one of the critical factors in the achievement of the mission. Also, as I said before, communication is vital. In Tomorrow’s working world, whether it’s strictly online, virtual or physical, trust and communication are essential to have an efficient workflow and a successful company. And Tomorrow’s working world starts today.” (Hany Akoury, class of 2020)

 Private equity analyst intern at Banque Populaire

A student majoring in Financial Engineering, Clément Veaux-Boucraut completed his final year’s internship at Banque Populaire, where he joined the Private Equity team.

“The human-sized team and flat organisation have allowed me to be genuinely involved in the whole investment process for three deals during the semester. I, therefore, participated in a €40-million deal, through which I became very efficient under pressure and improved my sense of initiative. I was also seduced by the specific structure of a bank fund, combining a high deal flow and co-investment transactions with leading firms.” (Clément Veaux-Boucraut, class of 2020)

During his 6-month internship, Clément went through the lockdown period, but it didn’t stop him from putting in practice new knowledge.

“The two-month lockdown period has profoundly impacted the M&A market and thus, our daily job from a Private Equity firm’s perspective. As every single transaction has been frozen for these eight weeks, we decided to reshape the fund’s financial model. We had the opportunity to implement some useful features such such as a convertible bond break, a conversion rate calculator to optimise the IRR as well as a deal-sourcing automation tool to help the team save several hours a week.”(Clément Veaux-Boucraut, class of 2020)

Clément played a vital role at Banque Populaire and added value to the organisation thanks to his soft skills training and his mastery of the complexity of modern financial markets.

“Through this experience, directly working with associates on financial modelling and firm valuation, I have gained strong quantitative skills, teamwork abilities and attention to detail. The marketing material I prepared with the team for the Investment Committee has allowed me to develop valuable analytical skills, business acumen and honed my knowledge of several industries.” (Clément Veaux-Boucraut, class of 2020)

Security Software Engineer at the French Judicial Police

For his 3rd-year of the engineering curriculum, Clovis Carlier landed a 2-month internship as a part of the French Judicial Police security software team.

“My internship is going to last until late September, but for the moment, it has been a fantastic experience. I had the opportunity to go back to the French Judicial Police with the contacts I made last year since I already did an internship in this organisation in summer 2019. I’m in a department called the D2A, the Division of Anticipation and Analysis, and I work with a small team of 12 people (with home working and holidays we were only half of that most of the time). Since I know all of them from last year, I had no trouble integrating the team. My experience is for the moment, very enlightening. I have powerful interests in the department’s missions, such as malware forensics. For example, I’m learning a lot about all cybersecurity and cyber criminality aspects, from forensics and analysis to web tools for open intelligence researches.” (Clovis Carlier, class of 2023)

Even though many employers have revoked or postponed internships offers, Clovis managed to adapt and got creative to snag this placement program.

“My internship itself wasn’t affected by the pandemic outside of necessary security measures. We had to wear a mask in communal spaces, use gel etc. and the team was not complete at all with home working so the atmosphere could sometimes be a bit grim. However, the pandemic has profoundly affected my researches. Every time I reached to a company I had no prior contacts with, I ended up with negative responses or none at all. It was only because of my connections at the French Judicial Police from last year that I managed to get this internship.” (Clovis Carlier, class of 2023)

As a placement student, Clovis managed complex projects and tackled sensitive tools used in cybercrime investigation, such as Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).

“I’ve learnt so many things it would be too long to list them exhaustively, for the first month I’ve worked on an OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) web tool to help the malware analysts in my team for their research. With this project, I’ve deepened my knowledge in the python programming language by coding most of my project with it, as well as multiple other programming languages such as HTML, CSS or JavaScript. But most importantly, I’ve acquired knowledge only accessible in an organisation such as the Judicial Police, an understanding that only analysts and engineers that have access to sensitive data and who manipulate sophisticated tools have. “

At ESILV, during the five years of engineering school, interns complete at least one year of work placements which allow future engineers to take hold on their professional project. ESILV develops partnerships with companies from a range of fields, including finance, banking, insurance, energies, aeronautics, automotive industry, mechanics…