What is it like to be an Intern Web Developer at Idego: Find Your First Programming Job!

Introduction

IT is a rapidly growing, challenging and perspective branch. No wonder it’s a dream of many young people to become a developer. So was in my case and finally, I found my place here – at Idego Group. The following text will tell you how you can become an intern web developer.

However, if you want to become a proper programmer and not an intern, please check out our developer internship program.

My path of intern web developer

The first step was to write some job-related projects. The crucial thing is that the code should be written by yourself. Of course, tutorials are great for learning, but if you want to be taken seriously, you’re supposed to show YOUR programming skills, instead of rewriting somebody else’s work.

From my personal experience, it seems more valuable to have a single, complete, fully working project with some more advanced features, rather than a number of various, poor quality applications, but it might actually depend on the recruiter.

Once you’ve got a decent portfolio, it’s a good time to apply for a job or internship. Make sure to upload your code to some version control service like GitHub, or even better, to deploy it using online hosting like PythonAnywhere, Heroku or a JavaScript equivalent.

After sending my CV, I was asked to create an app using Django and Bootstrap. I had 7 days, which was absolutely enough, as I was already somewhat familiar with the basics of this framework.

The app itself wasn’t anything breathtaking. In fact, it didn’t even look what a modern web app should look like. But the code was clean and it fulfilled all the requirements described in the task.

The last step was an interview with a competition test. And again, I don’t think I passed it perfectly. A few weeks later, I asked my current colleague Bartek *cheers!*, who had been interviewing me, what made him evaluate me positively. He said it was being able to argument my code implementation and sensibly discuss the mistakes I made.

Apparently, nobody passes this test perfectly and it’s totally fine, so there’s nothing to be frightened of.

First days of work

On my first day in work as a intern web developer, I was extremely excited and even a bit stressed. The people around were very friendly though, some of them instantly offered assistance in case I need something.

My workspace was prepared far better than I could imagine. In general, our office is very well equipped, both in terms of job and entertainment facilities.

There are fruits, snacks and coffee available for everyone. On Fridays we have company lunches together, where you can order various dishes. Whenever there’s a bit of free time, you can also relax playing table soccer.

In contrast to my expectations, I had no commercial tasks at all in the first weeks. Instead I was given time to do courses and throw questions to my mentor, Jan *cheers*. That time gave me a lot in terms of programming and finally. I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to effectively take part in commercial projects without such introduction.

My project

I was very lucky, as I got assigned to a completely fresh project for our client in the USA. I’m given a chance to work and get experience with both frontend and backend side of web development.

I was even allowed to chose the technology used in the project. I picked Vue.js over React as a frontend framework, since it fits me better. It wasn’t a problem at all, as we are all getting lots of autonomy and and trust from our managers.

Thanks to those few first weeks of drilling my skills, I’m managing the whole project on my own on it’s initial stage. And even when there’s something more complex to be done. There’s always some more experienced frontend or backend developer around to ask for tips. In general, if you’re looking forward to expand your skills in programming,

Idego definitely provides an excellent environment!

Future…

My project is still growing and I’m still learning a lot in terms of broadly defined web development. But my interests are far beyond that. In the future, I’m looking forward to getting engaged in some Data Science or Geographical Information Systems tasks (as I am actually a bachelor of engineering in Geodesy and Cartography, not Computer Science).

There are various interesting projects at Idego and some of them are already related to these technologies. Hopefully, someday I’ll be given a chance to check myself there.

Wrap up

It takes lots of dedication to become a developer. And even then, our work is still all about endless learning. But if you’re a real passionate, it’s worth it.

I hope you’ll find that motivation and perhaps we’ll work together at Idego someday? If you were interested in our company, please click here to contact us now!