Enhancing Data Infrastructure Efficiency: My Workhuman Internship Journey
Hi there! I'm Jason, a Data Infrastructure Intern here at Workhuman, where I'm completing my accredited work placement as a Computer Science student at Maynooth University. I possess a strong enthusiasm for technology and also engage in various hobbies, including football and avidly following a wide range of other sports. Other facts about me is that I love reading history and I’m involved as PRO of a classic car club in Roscommon!
I chose to apply to Workhuman for my internship because I admired their business model and culture. They strongly believe in employee recognition and promoting a positive work environment. Therefore, the opportunity to get to work at a company like Workhuman was very appealing to me.
Since I joined, a significant project I have undertaken is the development of a set of Redshift Stored Procedures. These procedures automate the handling of Redshift Access Requests by the DBA team. Their implementation has effectively reduced the need for manual intervention in these requests, resulting in a significant enhancement of the overall process's speed and efficiency. Throughout this project I was able to significantly enhance my SQL skills as I became more familiar with Amazon Redshift. It was nice to reach an end product with this project and it can now be used by the team in production environments for the future.
Since I started at Workhuman, my learning curve has been exceptional. I have acquired extensive knowledge about Data Infrastructure, including the maintenance and management of databases. I have gained valuable insights into the procedures in place for organising and distributing data accurately. Working on my project has allowed me to expand my SQL proficiency significantly. I am genuinely delighted with the wealth of knowledge and experience I have acquired during my time here.
I definitely was able to apply my learnings to my internship. I had learned SQL initially in college so I had a decent understanding of it when I joined. Having a background in Computer Science has provided me with a solid foundation when engaging in discussions with various teams, including software developers and data engineers. It has given me the confidence to effectively communicate and collaborate with these teams and individuals.
Being able to learn off my very experienced team members has definitely been the highlight of my internship. I really enjoyed working with my team on the day-to-day tasks of a DBA such as data requests, redshift access requests, working in oracle databases and aurora clusters and much more! I have great admiration for what they do every day, and they aspire me to reach their level someday. I felt very welcome from the start within my team, and they wanted me to succeed as much as I want to learn from them!
The advice I would give to someone considering an internship at Workhuman would be to research more about Workhuman and what their core mission is. From a business and technological perspective there is so much to learn here and it gives you a whole new perspective. I was glad that I did this myself before I joined as it holds great importance when becoming part of a company.
Well first things first, I have to go back and finish my final year in Maynooth! But following that I would love to peruse a career in Data Infrastructure. Infrastructure as a whole stands out to me but there’s something about data (especially now having the experience in it) that has really appealed to me so definitely something down this road. It suits my personality as well I think, I feel I more naturally tilt in this direction as I would describe myself as analytical.