My SDE Internship Unraveled: Navigating the Tech Terrain and Embracing the Learnings 💡👨💻
My Amazing Experience as a Remote SDE Intern
The journey
Working as a remote SDE Intern in a startup was one of the best things that could have happened to me. It not only sharpened my learning and thought process, but also helped me overcome my fears and timidity. The sheer will to do a task, no matter what, was instilled in me at Wellness Connection Inc., and I am eternally grateful to my former manager (now senior manager).
Apart from learning about new tools and features, I also learned how to use them and implemented many of them in my daily activities. I was quite new to backend development and had little knowledge about how complex things work. Over time, I became accustomed to backend development, so much so that I now prefer backend development over frontend.
The key learnings
From learning about the infrastructure to working on some of the key features, the journey has been an amazing experience!
Here are some of the key learnings that I am always grateful for:
Backend development: I overcame my fear of backend development when I was given a small task to improve the system by creating an API to clear the junk from the S3 bucket. That was the first time I learned how to write an API in GraphQL.
Learning by doing and seeing stuff: I was told to always backtrack to find all the sources that could lead to a problem. I logged each activity that could lead to such exceptions, traced their origin, dug deeper, and carefully checked each piece.
Software development: I am now familiar with the idea of software development, the terms and methodologies used in the industry, and how startups work. I learned how to think like a producer, a manufacturer, and a developer.
Being supportive: The best lesson I learned so far was how to be supportive and how to never give up, no matter what the situation. My former manager and my fellow senior developer played a key role in teaching me these virtues. While I know these learnings may sound very common and casual to everyone, including myself, but facing the reality and still being able to handle it without sweating is where the challenge lies.
Scheming a system design: I was asked to design a complete system before developing any feature. This led to my understanding of how things actually work behind the scenes, how tech giants use some of the tools for their own benefit, and how these things can be developed from scratch. From using a renowned tool to finding its flaws and using an alternate tool, coupled with building certain features from scratch to achieve the same output or better, it has been a huge learning curve.
Looking Ahead to the Future
This span of 9 months has taught me how to manage time efficiently and how to be prepared for unplanned events. While my time as an intern has ended, I take this opportunity to learn new things, develop new skills, and upgrade myself to face more challenges in the upcoming days. Each phase of this internship came with new lessons and new challenges. Some were easy to face, and some were quite difficult, but in the end, it was all worth every ounce of sweat I shed.