How did you decide that you wanted to do R&D?

I'd be happy to share insights into my role! Let me start by answering the question mentioned in the headline.

The most important reason for this is that I enjoy making things work and seeing my work actualize. I am also quite a technically-oriented and practical person or at least someone who likes to do things. Even though my work at R&D includes a great deal of thinking and planning, the deliverable is the software product, and the end goal is thus to implement the solutions in code. Another aspect is that I have always wanted to understand how things work on the low level, and in R&D it is just that.

Choosing to apply for an R&D position was quite an easy choice for me because of the reasons above. I guess another thing that mattered was the will to put the things I learned at the university to practice. Already during my studies, I liked to focus on the most technical courses and I wanted to use all of those things in my working life as well. It was hard for me to see better options back then than an R&D engineer role.

When it comes to my work, it indeed involves working with the software, implementing features based on specifications and requirements, hunting bugs, and all that sorts of software development work in a traditional sense. I have for example currently a few bigger features ongoing that I am involved in. They are in different stages, so my days consist of actual coding, but also sync-up meetings, technical planning meetings, and brainstorming, as well as bug hunting which is software development, is always there (this is actually probably the one single thing that has taught me the most in my current role). I would say an internship is a perfect way to get to know the company and all its various opportunities. It is also good to bear in mind that one can also usually change roles inside the company if one finds an interesting opportunity. So it is good to see an internship as a door-opener, too!

My top advice is to keep your eyes open and try to find things that you enjoy doing, even those not directly related to your role. It is already a great advantage to be able to put one's interests into words. I think that in a big technology company, a person with your background is an attractive employee in many parts of the organization. Please let me know if you are interested to learn more on any topic!