Why did you join Clearbanc?
The first thing caught my attention was the technology stack Clearbanc uses for development. With a blend of financial system and data analyzation, the software is delivered over the web and interacts with a great variety of web services. Working at Clearbanc as a developer involves understanding the business model, designing and developing both front-end and back-end features, data visualization, unit testing and much more. There is such so much variation of work, you never get bored.
Clearbanc helps freelancers and entrepreneurs, a growing segment of the economy, by providing capital so their businesses can grow. After watching a few interviews with Co-Founder Michele Romanow and talking one on one with Co-Founder Andrew D’Souza (previously COO of Tophat, President of Nymi), I was impressed by just how passionate they were about their business. It also led me to believe that this lean but mighty team was bound to make a difference and I’m excited to have been a part of it.
Describe your role/ your day to day?
We perform agile software development. Every Monday before we start working, the tech team would have a short meeting to set goals and talk about the tickets we need to work on for this week. Tuesday-Friday we have daily stand-up to catch up with the whole team about what they worked on yesterday and what their plans are for today. On Friday, we would have casual demos to update everyone on new features implemented during that week.
My position was in the tech team. Every morning after the stand-up, I would start working on various tasks (finishing up what was left from tomorrow, starting a new ticket etc.). Sometimes the tech team would gather over lunch and watch videoes about programming languages, cool features associating a certain framework/platform or interviews with tech giants. In the afternoon, I would continue working on my tickets. Most of the time we work separately but when it came to design decisions, we like to discuss with other team members to get their thoughts. Sometimes when I was performing an important task, I would pair with a teammate to catch any edge cases I overlooked.
Overall, the team was very structured and functioned efficiently. There was never too much or too little work. Every day I woke up feeling excited to start work for the day.
Did you work on any cool projects?
Aside from contributing to the main software project at Clearbanc, I also had the chance to carry out my own project to automatically search, identify and reach out to more potential customers. It was so fun to have full control and build a new project from scratch. And it was also different from any project I worked on before. It helped Clearbanc to get new customers and helped me to branch out and extend my skills.
What did you find challenging?
The biggest challenge and yet the best part of working at Clearbanc being able to work on any part of the system. As a developer, I was exposed to not only the normal web development stack but also financial concepts, data science and a variety of software tools. My past co-op positions all evolved around single page web application development, so it was not too hard for me to understand the concepts. But getting familiar with a new language (Ruby) and new frameworks like Ember and Rails which I had never worked on before, took a bit of work. It was fun learning about magical Ruby spells and I was happy to be able to contribute to the codebase from week one. Later in the term, I got the chance to look at machine learning models for prediction. Clearbanc offers so many learning opportunities - you can find something new and exciting here if you appreciate a challenge.
What do you want to tell students who are considering Clearbanc for their next co-op?
Clearbanc has a team that rocks. There is something in the team that makes me feel like I am important and my opinion matters. It was clear that Clearbanc care about the employees and wants them to be successful both at work and at their lives. I had so many happy moments with the team and memorable experiences that I will never forget.
Through my past co-op terms, I have come to realized that I prefer to work at smaller companies over the large ones. As a co-op student, I feel so much more valued at smaller companies. Clearbanc did not disappoint in this regard. The feeling of fulfillment I gained motivated me to learn and thus achieve more. Clearbanc’s small but efficiently structured team provided me with so many learning opportunities. It is perfect for those who enjoy a challenge and are hungry to learn. Working at Clearbanc is your chance to enhance your skills and grow with a company with a bright future.
Clearbanc has helped thousands of entrepreneurs grow their businesses through services like financing capital and business intelligence.
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