Getting the Job

About the Job

Daily Activity Log

Career Advice

Internship Value

A Photo Tour

 

Section 2.0 - About the Job

Section 2.1 Employer –
My internship was at Federal Home Loan Mortgage or better known as Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac is a government- sponsored enterprise. They are chartered by Congress to fill a specific need in the United States economy and are bound by certain rules while allowed other specific freedoms. The initial reason for establishing Freddie Mac’s charter was to make more money available for prospective homeowners. The company does business in the secondary mortgage market. Freddie Mac will buy home loans from various banks and lending institutions then repackage them into mortgage backed securities and resell them on the stock market as well as in foreign markets. Freddie Mac will also hold a small portion of the loans it buys and add those loans to its internal portfolio.

I worked for the Information Systems and Services division within Freddie Mac. It was our job to make sure the business department of Freddie Mac had access to the technology they needed to keep the company moving forward. This included both the software applications and the infrastructure for those applications to run on. When I arrived at the office, I was assigned to a production support team. My team was in charge of maintaining the applications the company used after these went through the development process. Common projects included bug fixes and enhancements. The team had eighteen people working on it. I worked forty hours a week for twelve weeks. My supervisor, a technical manager, has twenty-five people working directly under him. When I had to meet with our customers or users, they were generally other Freddie Mac employees. Because Freddie Mac is a government-sponsored enterprise, it cannot do business in any markets but the secondary mortgage market, which means any software created by Freddie Mac must be used by Freddie Mac and cannot be sold to outside customers.

The culture at Freddie Mac was considered structured. From what other employees in the company told me, it is more relaxed compared to many companies working on top-secret or classified projects, but more structured compared to our competitor, Fannie Mae.

 

Section 2.2 Your Job –
Being on the production support team was a new and challenging experience. As a student, there are not many opportunities to take part in the maintenance portion of the software life cycle. My internship provided me with this experience. I was placed on the support team with no knowledge of the applications with which I was going to have to work. In order to do my job, I had to learn the internal workings of these applications. I quickly found out that I had to learn each application rather quickly because it is impossible to make meaningful, productive changes without at least a basic understanding of how each application works.

Once I had familiarized myself with the applications, I began to get my daily work assignments. These assignments mostly consisted of bug fixes and enhancements. One of the most in depth enhancements I had to do was on a program called Pricing Navigator. The business area used it to price and view loans. My enhancement added new GUI screens as well as the logic to go to the database then retrieve, sort, and display the information the user requests. It both saved the users time and increased the functionality of the application.

As an intern, my supervisor did not expect me to have the same level of expertise as a new hire that may have already completed a degree. I was encouraged to ask questions and learn as much as possible. Coupled with my team’s willingness to answer my questions and guide me when I needed assistance, I found that Freddie Mac was a great environment in which to work. I was also encouraged to enroll in as many training seminars as I could. One of the seminars I attended focused on the corporate data warehouse. I learned where the data used by the applications I supported comes from. The presenters also shared the future plans of the data warehouse and how the changes would allow Freddie Mac to stay competitive in the secondary mortgage market.