How an internship can be the first step to a career in software development

Internships give you the opportunity. After these weeks or months of internship at a given company, you know if that’s what you want to do for the next few years, you know the pros and cons of such a position, how you can grow there, etc. 

And at the end of it, if everyone involved feel like the cooperation is great and there’s a culture fit, you’ll often be offered a permanent job. But again, there are no strings attached! You can stay or leave it to pursue another career. It’s a big advantage of internship – I personally know many people that were disappointed by their first jobs and sometimes chose completely different career paths.

So overall, internships are a great way to gain IT experience, make new connections and see how you fit into the industry.

How did I transform from an intern to a web developer? What was my experience with the internship? Read about my journey at Gorrion.

First impression 

Gorrion was my first software development company, and luckily, it turned out not to be the typical ‘corpo-house’; the one that we all know from the memes.

The first impression is important, and here, Gorrion came off very well. It’s obvious that a company is made mainly up of people. Still, there are also other aspects, like a great look of the office, its layout (open offices as opposed to smaller, separate rooms), the presence of places like a shared kitchen, dining room, and more. At Gorrion, I’ve found that all these things create a place you want to visit and work in.

All those things were there from the very beginning and allowed me to feel like a part of the company, which is necessary for a newbie.

5 aspects of the internship 

Now let’s move on to the specifics about the Gorrion internship.

The project – Planning Poker

As for the project, I liked the clearly stated goal at the beginning of the work – it was clear that we were to create a specific app that should work and look in one way and not the other. Also, we knew that we were developing just an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and our work would be further developed, which provided us with the feeling of doing a real project and not just a useless just-to-be-done one.

Another plus was the great work done by the UX/UI designer. We got a ready-made design for Planning Poker, so the whole issue of agreeing with the team about the product’s look disappeared completely. And as a student, who often had to solve such conflicts in the team, it was a big relief. Thanks to this, I could focus on actually developing the app.

Teamwork makes the dream work

We’ve made a great team. Though, sure, it was hard at the beginning, since we didn’t know each other. But with every hour passing by, there was more ease between us, and at the beginning of the second week of internship, we actually started to work as a capable, efficient team and learned how to cooperate.

We’ve worked in Scrum, and as for planning, everyone could pick tasks according to their actual abilities and finish them in more or less the same time as the estimated (although we all know that there are always a few exceptions, especially at the beginning). 

I also really liked the work of our Product Owner, Michalina. She was patient with us, especially during the first planning (where no one said absolutely anything without being explicitly asked). But luckily, as we learned how to cooperate, we also started to work with her as we should. 

Plus, Michalina was very responsive and flexible. Even though she had her everyday tasks apart from our internship, she always tried to answer our questions as soon as possible and as accurately as she could.

Individual mentors 

The idea of individual mentors was brilliant, especially for a “scared” intern who suddenly finds himself in an environment full of developers. Finding an answer by asking any of them wouldn’t be a problem, but it is always easier when there is a single person you can turn to with the particular problem or code review, instead of walking from desk to desk.

My mentor Piotrek did his job well. He carefully checked my code and added precise comments on why something should be different than I did it, or just how to generally improve the quality of my code. Plus, when something was still unclear for me, he explained it calmly and with patience, so there was no ambiguity.

The office atmosphere

There was a friendly atmosphere in the office, which at the same time, didn’t cause a drop in productivity. I always thought that finding this balance may not be easy (especially seeing the FIFA room with PS4 in the office), but here, I felt there’s no problem with that.

As I mentioned at the beginning, at Gorrion, there’s a shared kitchen and dining room. We’ve almost always ordered our food together, which even further developed the feeling of being a part of the company. We were also invited to all of the after-work events.

Challenges 

As for challenges, there were relatively few issues during the development of our project, and they appeared mainly at the beginning of our work. 

Plus, there wasn’t a single situation where something stayed unsolved for more than a day (and usually, it was a matter of a few hours). When we didn’t manage on our own, our mentors were there all the time to help us, which meant that we could develop our game smoothly without anything blocking us. 

Let’s see the score

Here’s my summary of the Gorrion internship. Let’s take a look.

What I liked the most about the internship:

• creating a product that will actually be used and further developed,
• working in Scrum,
• using tools like ClickUp to organize my work,
• individual mentors,
• awesome office space,
• friendly, welcoming atmosphere,
• ordering food together,
• flexible hours.

From intern to web developer

As I’ve mentioned at the beginning, after the internship ended, I was offered a permanent job as a web developer at Gorrion – I took the opportunity, and I can say that was definitely the right choice. 

The transition from an intern to a proper developer was smooth – mainly thanks to the way the internship looked. I was well-prepared for working in a Scrum environment and collaborating with other developers, and I knew my responsibilities.

Since the internship ended, I’ve participated in 4 or 5 totally different projects, and that number is still growing. In every single one, I feel like I’ve learned a lot (sometimes even the knowledge I didn’t think I’d need), and that’s great – for a relatively inexperienced developer, I think that’s truly important.

Plus, there are also internal workshops and monthly developer meetings during which I can learn about new libraries, technologies or tools that I can later use in the project.

How you can grow as a developer at Gorrion? Check out the article How you can grow as a developer at Gorrion, and learn how organizations build employee training and development programs as well as our initiatives.

And last but not least, every positive aspect of Gorrion I’ve experienced during internship and mentioned earlier is still there, making day-to-day work enjoyable.

All in all

I think I pretty much exhausted the topic of my internship at Gorrion. I had a lot of fun during those 4 weeks. Working together allowed me not only to create a pretty cool (I hope) product but also to verify my knowledge and skills. And soon, I’ll celebrate my 1st anniversary at Gorrion!  

Check out our career section and see the available positions. Maybe there’s something for you?