Humans of Workhuman: The Intern Story
Hey, our names are Joe and Anthony, and we are third year software engineering students from TUD Tallaght in Dublin, and we chose to do an internship for our second semester - coincidentally at the same company.
Meet Joe:
Hi, I'm Joe. I live in Dublin and my hobbies include anything sport related, my favourite being Formula 1 which I have followed since I was very young. I became interested in software development after reading about machine learning and artificial intelligence.
And Anthony;
A little about myself: my name is Anthony, I have a cat and dog. My hobbies include video games, travel and technology. I also really like helmets.
When asked why they decided to join Workhuman as their second semester internship they said:
Joe:
I chose Workhuman because it was one of the only full stack options available for an internship. I thought this would be the best way for me to develop my knowledge and technical skills in multiple different areas of software development at once. My initial interest in the business led me to read up on Workhuman’s company culture and history. After browsing the website I felt like the culture at Workhuman would be a perfect fit for me and the fact that Workhuman was an Irish company made me even more excited to apply.
The main projects I have been working on during my internship so far have included front and back-end development of the Moodtracker app using React, Typescript and Python . This Workhuman application uses anonymous surveys to gauge the mood of employees and to receive feedback. Due to the anonymous nature of the surveys it allows employees to be more forthcoming and honest with their answers providing stronger more accurate feedback.
Right from the get go I was tasked with multiple front and back-end tickets to make changes, fix bugs and add features to the Moodtracker app. Being given the opportunity to work on an in development app using such a modern tech stack was very exciting. The Neutron team- the team working on Moodtracker always kept me busy with dev tickets and trusted me to be able to complete them.
If I ever was stuck or needed to ask a question everyone on the team was extremely helpful and willing to jump on a call and take me through step by step. Never was I treated as "just an intern," instead I was allowed to be involved in all the discussions and meetings regarding Moodtracker’s development.
In my short time at Workhuman I feel like I have learned more about software development and the technology industry than in my 3 years of university so far, whether it’s coding in front-end or back-end, or using databases within an application, there seems to be no better learning method then a hands-on real world environment.
Outside of coding, the art of working and communicating within a team is something that I have learned is just as important as problem solving a software issue. Workhuman has helped me to improve my skills in those departments greatly, whether a stand up or team retrospectives I learned the importance of good communication.
The most useful skill I learned from college that I was able to apply to my internship at Workhuman was the ability to read and navigate code. Because I was working with so many new technologies I had little experience with being able to read and navigate the code base helped me learn these technologies much faster.
The highlight of my internship has been getting to know and work with the neutron team working on Moodtracker, I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with such a fun and helpful team. Everybody on the team made it so easy to learn and improve and they were always willing to take time out of their busy day to help me with whatever problems I had- big or small.
The atmosphere on the team was really fun and laid back while still keeping a very high standard of work, which I found to be the perfect environment as an intern to learn and improve a number of skills regarding working as a software developer. I also really enjoyed the team building exercises whether it was just going out for a meal or working together to complete an escape challenge.
Anthony:
I love the company culture and the inclusivity here at Workhuman. It always seems like there is something happening and to look forward to. The people I have met outside of my team have been nothing but nice to me, and I look forward to all the meetings I have with them just to see what references they hide in their Zoom backgrounds or a joke that always lands.
The main project I got to work on was a data growth project. This was a collaboration between myself and the rest of my team on helping structure the project goals. The things I got to work on and learn during this project were:
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JavaScript frontend development
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UNIX shell scripting
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Oracle SQL query scripting
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HTML/CSS designing and website structure.
All of these components were not only crucial for the project but also extremely helpful for my growth as a software engineer. I managed to develop a fully responsive and reactive site that would gather statistical information on the company’s databases and render it in graph form for use in reports.
I have also gotten to work on other projects with team members on reporting systems, database migrations and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) tools.
Working on these projects has had me constantly building my skills in all these fields and I have never felt more confident in them than I am now. But the most important skills that I picked up were project management and project designing. I found that understanding what I was building and the use cases for the tool streamlined the building phase dramatically, as all of the functionality and layouts were already made before I even started writing a line of code.
Having a clear vision for what you are developing is something I took away from this and will have in mind for the next project I work on.
I even got some experience with Jenkins - an open source automation server on the backend which was really enlightening and opened me up to a whole new side of programming that I haven’t seen before in DevOps.
A highlight for me has been the comradery within my team. They have been very helpful with helping me understand concepts I haven’t heard of before, showing me how apps work or teaching me something with scripting. Every call was a new lesson learned for me.
After my internship, I’m returning back to campus for one more final year to achieve the diploma. Afterwards, I might go on a short holiday and then start my professional career as a software engineer.
Advice from the interns:
To anybody considering applying to Workhuman for an internship; make sure to apply as soon as possible, that your CV is up to date and accurate, read up on Workhuman as a company and learn more about what they do and the company culture.
To anybody that is still on the fence about applying we both cannot recommend Workhuman enough - the friendly work environment, the company events, the great work culture all lead to a perfect environment to improve your software engineering skills and learn some new technologies along the way.