My Summer Working at Expedia
(co-written by a fellow apprentice named Catherine)
We were apprentices/interns on Expedia’s iOS mobile development team in San Francisco for the summer of 2018.

The First 2 Weeks
Like any firsts, we were nervous and excited. We had to go through orientation, get our new laptops, receive company swag, and meet our mentor and manager. It was exciting. We began by downloading required programs and getting access to Expedia’s codebase. After that, the first two weeks at Expedia served as an introduction to project and the IDE we used. Our mentor gave us simple projects, such as building sample apps like the classic Hello World app or a Shopping List app. We learned the difference in app architectures, product management styles, and how Expedia maintains a consistent style to their fonts and colors.
Besides coding, we had to adapt to corporate culture, utilize our coworkers for help, and make friends. We attended meetings, contributed to the team by sizing the difficulty of projects, asked for help, and learned how to be part of the team. We were introduced to all of the San Francisco’s engineering team via Waffle Thursday and helped to make waffles with the other two apprentices from the Lodging team.

Hackathon
For Expedia’s seventh hackathon, the focus was on the consumer. So, our mentor took us under his wing and had us participate in his team in creating a flight tracker feature. For us, the hackathon was the transition phase from working with our code to dealing with Expedia’s app. We learned how to pull and push code, solve file conflicts, utilize an API for the app to receive and present real-time flight tracking data, and how the terminal works with Github in file management.

The Remaining 5 Weeks
Back from our hackathon, we picked up our first cards and set to work. Unfortunately, we were still a little shaky on how the terminal pulled code from Github and pushed it back with fresh edits. Fortunately, there were two of us, armed with notes from the weeks before. Our first PR was speedily approved, and we moved on to new cards. During this process, we learned about how Expedia maintains its quality code through checks from third-party software, feature flags that hide untested features, and unit tests. In the end, our project was redesigning and adding new features to the Account profile page, specifically in the point of sale section and the loyalty rewards section. We even had the opportunity to present it to all of San Francisco’s engineering team.

But, don’t worry, we didn’t just stay inside for our whole summer before freshman year. Expedia hosted leadership learning series as well as apprentice events, where we learned career advice from executives at Expedia Group and technological skills. Our teams also treated us to diverse foods, such as sweets from India, bakery goodies, and lunches from across the world (Mexico, India, China, Japan, Thailand, etc). Expedia had us volunteer in a local park for their Day of Caring, explore an Escape Room, and participate in their yearly engineering picnic by the Golden Gate Bridge.

Acknowledgements
Thank you so much to Expedia, the mobile development team, our Growth team, our mentor, and our manager! We felt so welcomed and encouraged while working here. To say the least, it was eye-opening. We truly felt a part of the team and are so happy to have spent the last eight weeks with everyone!

