How GO-JEK Evolved Me In Short 10 Weeks

My university is one of the best technology oriented university in Indonesia, there are a lot of smart and clever student studying there. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I’m just a normal student that having a hard time to understand anything that my lecturer said in the class resulting that I sometime skip a class or two just because I don’t enjoy it. It’s not that I’m dumb or stupid, rather I feel that I’m demotivated to study inside classroom. Every morning I wake up not feeling too motivated for attending a class, but because there’s a minimum attendance percentage I need to force myself to wake up and go to campus. I do enjoy my campus-life outside the class, because personally I feel that learning happen outside classroom, learning happen when I interact with my teammates to discuss and solving problem together.
After I finished my 6th semester just barely, following the rule that said all student need to do an internship at a company for more than 6 weeks in summer holiday period, I chose to do an internship at Go-Jek and Go-Jek also chose me to be one of the 12 Go-Squad Tech 2.0 (the interns for software engineering at Go-Jek Indonesia) member. I really enjoy it, and also it evolve my life. Let me tell you why.
Bootcamp, a great reminder that everything start from basics.
The internship started with a bootcamp for a week long, in those bootcamp sessions we discussed a lot about the very fundamental stuff like how to name a function, how should you design a class following the object-oriented design patterns, how to make a git commit and also how to do a unit testing. Sometimes we forgot about fundamentals skill when we learn new stuffs everyday, it’s understandable though, thats why this program is very good to remind us back how to do a basic and fundamental stuff following the best practices that agreed in Go-Jek.
Aside from technical skills, we also improve our communication skill and teamwork. Other than having a awesome speaking drill session that really improve me a lot, we also always code as a pair or known as pair-programming so that we can work as a pair together with anyone. This is also what really make me more comfortable to interact with the other intern.
Go-Squads Tech 2.0, a group of weirdo that gathered by the Go-Academy team that are able to do awesome stuff together
One thing that I like the most in my 10 weeks internship must be our Go-Squads, one day 12 guys gathered awkwardly without knowing each other, the next two day these guys became close friends with each other. Awesome, isn’t it? Thanks to the bootcamp, we faced hell together as a team that make a solid connection between us. In less than a month I feel like I have another family that meet in the office together, doing stuffs together, suffering together and of course have fun together.
Sharing is swesome
Working in Go-Jek really remind me that sharing is an important thing, and among all things knowledge is a best thing to be shared. Knowledge is unlimited, you can share your knowledge to everybody many times and it will not wear off, instead it will grow stronger than ever. In Go-Jek, I feel that sharing have become a culture that everybody seems to passionate to share about everything they know, technical or non-technical stuff. Don’t believe it? Check it out at the Go-Jek Tech Engineering Blog to read about how Go-Jek evolve in term of software engineering, there are some awesome blog that you can read there.
Even to us, the interns, Go-Jek employees really transmit the energy to share by let us to work on open-sourced projects at Github, and also by teach us to share via blog.
Communication is as important as technical skill
While technical skill is needed as a software engineer, there is another thing called soft-skill that really important. One of the most important soft-skill is communication. Communication is needed to share and to transmit the idea, knowledge and wisdom to another person. No matter how smart you are, if you are not able to transmit, show and share it, then nobody will know it.
I did mention earlier that Go-Jek help us grow in term of communication skill while bootcamp. But, it didn’t stop there, we were given so much chance to improve our communication skill, for example weekly showcase to present our one to two week worth of work in merely ten to fifteen minute period, there a lot of formal and informal group discussion happen, write a blog post and just have a small talk to others.
Process is where the learning happen
I was always a result-oriented person, I always pursue the best result possible until sometimes I neglected the process, it’s not that I am totally on the wrong side. Sometimes with a goal-oriented mind, I’m able to do stuffs super fast and it result amazingly. But, while I’m doing this internship I realized that sometimes we need to forget about the result and just really enjoy the process. Especially when doing pair programming. It can be hard, combining 2 mind with different way of thinking is not an easy task, believe me. It become really really hard when each party have different goal. That’s why to become a harmonic pair, sometimes we need to sacrifice the result and make the process of programming enjoyable for both. Result is just a prize, if it good, then awesome, you both can enjoy it, but if it failed, then it still a good experience of learning for both of you.
Research before argue and always have justification when making a decision
As a human we often jump right into a decision without really conduct a proper research, this make our decision and argument look shallow. In my time in Go-Jek, I really learnt to have a justification for each decision I made, to have a proper research, look for another solution other than mine and compare it. In Go-Jek we are told to always ask why, always ask why until you are satisfied with the answer, and the person who make the decision or argument should really able to answer the ‘why’ question. This culture make us really think deeply and do a research so that we are not making some rushed decision, but instead making a smart decision.
Happiness and Motivation
For me the concept of happiness is a simple thing, as long as I wake up every morning knowing that I want to be in the office to do something that I love for an entire day, then I’ll be happy. And Go-Jek provide me that. The working environment really motivate me to grow and learn everyday. This make me really happy to be able to sit in the workspace, have a discussion with my team, with the full-time employee, with the Go-Academy team, do some activities knowing that at the end of the day I’ll probably done something meaningful for my life. It really fulfill my life for a whole 10 weeks, I’ve never feel more lively before and it really give me a positive energy everyday.
Bottom line is, Go-Jek really provide me the best and the most important 10 weeks I’ve experienced so far in term of my professional and personal growth as an adult. I really can’t thank enough that I got a chance to work at Go-Jek . and meet some of the most inspirational person. Hope that someday I can meet again with those feeling of fulfillment. I will really miss this Go-Squads Tech 2.0 internship and the guys I met there.
#InfiniteLearning #Go-Academy