Q&A with Henrik Vlijter (Armstrong’s CompSci intern)

Henrik has kindly agreed to share his experiences of working as an intern at Armstrong.  

Tell us a bit about how you came to be at Armstrong? 

I’m going into my third and final year at Cardiff university. My background is very tech-focused. I’ve studied computer science from GCSEs through to university and previously completed an internship working in IT.  

I discovered Armstrong through a student opportunities channel on my universities Teams site. I saw that the role would allow me to work with AI and get an insight into the financial services industry, so I eagerly expressed my interest, attached my CV and sent my application in. By complete luck, the Finance society I’m a member of had an event scheduled in collaboration with Armstrong, I went along, met a few members of the team and had my interviews soon after. 

 What types of projects are you working on?  

I’m working on improving Armstrong’s internal technology and I’ve enjoyed this because my objectives are functionality. This means that I’m free to use whatever tools are useful to me and this has allowed me to work closely with the most advanced tools in the AI space from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. Additionally, the experience has helped me understand where tech fits into a commercial environment and where my skills can be of use. 

 Anything you would do differently next time? 

Absolutely, in September I’m going to start listening to my lecturers more intently. The most important technical lesson I’ve learned at Armstrong is how to apply theoretical lessons to a practical setting. Before starting I strongly believed practical skills were much more important than theoretical ones. Now I understand that both are equally as important. 

What advice would you give to someone thinking about working in software development and / or doing an internship? 

I think the best thing is to have a little bit of knowledge about many different things. Software development is all about finding the right answer, so knowing the first step in finding the answer is the most important. Also, I think that AI is something to embrace rather than shy away from, it’s unbelievable the amount of time ChatGPT has saved me.  

In terms of anyone doing an internship I would try and understand what you want to get out of your internship and focus on that. 

You can find out more about working at Armstrong here or speak to a member of the team.