Clover’s Internship Experience
As I approach the end of my software engineering internship with Clover, I can say that my time here has produced some of the most enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding experiences. From the jitters of having my first interview to the excitement of completing a project that will be used by the Nenagh office, I hope to shed some light on my time here. Clover has put together an internship that shows a commitment to growing their interns into well-rounded professionals.
In this brief article I’m going to break down the components of what made this internship so worthwhile to me. I’ll also highlight what I feel an organisation should include in their internship program to help interns gain the most out of the program, gain valuable skills for their future, and most importantly, entice them to return to the organisation as a full-time employee upon graduation.
Work as an Intern in Clover — Delivering a Meaningful Product
Clover interns are expected to take on the roles and responsibilities that a full-time associate would and work on a project that will be used in production.
For my internship, I built an automated metrics project that would be used by high-level management to gauge how well their teams were performing within sprints. The project automated the production of a handful of key metrics that could be used to standardise projects within the organisation, saving time for managers by reducing the need to manually retrieve this data. The final dashboard could show this information at a quick glance.
I am amazed to see how much work I contributed to the project for Clover. I began working on the project in the ideation phase; I worked on business requirements documents, project proposals, and software architecture diagrams.
Once I had a solid architecture solution in place, I then worked on the development phase which involved:
- Developing an ETL pipeline in Python from the company’s issue tracking software to a MySQL database
- Developing a data model and writing queries to load data to the database
- Working with AWS services such as EC2, S3 and VPCs
- Creating a dashboard using Microsoft Power BI
- Writing documentation and testing for all the above
- Presenting work to stakeholders after each sprint
As an intern, I was treated as a full-time associate. This was no “intern only” project to offer the simulated experience of working within the company. When designing the internship, Clover understood that interns like me value inclusivity and gain a real sense of self-worth when valued as members of their team. Setting up an internship program should include this practice as an integral part of an intern’s experience.
Additionally, work planned for an intern should be varied across the program, allowing them to gain experience across a broad range of topics. This works well for both the intern and the organisation. The intern gets the chance to work in areas that they hadn’t thought of and the organisation is able to establish whether this intern has the flexibility and problem-solving skills needed to become a full-time hire.
Being Part of a Team-Based Environment
During my time with Clover, I frequently had the opportunity to work with associates from all over the organisation, including:
- Fellow engineers
- Analysts
- Managers
- Directors
The social aspect of working for Clover is also absolutely fantastic. The past two years have been strange for everyone as we live through the COVID pandemic. Clover has found ways to keep social interactions and entertainment going in the work-from-home era we find ourselves in.
Every Friday my team has a “coffee and a catch up” meeting where we sit down for an hour, have a cup of tea or coffee, and let the conversation go wherever. This setup enables you to grow your social connections within the company. Other social events during my internship included:
- Three-day hackathons
- Online competitions
- Eventful days out
Focusing on team-building improves an intern’s soft skills, which can be crucial to getting work done.
On top of collaborating with current employees, I was asked to collaborate with future employees. I was constantly reminded to think about my work after my time on the project was complete; my code was written for a future when other members would have to extend the project. A well-organised internship should emphasize that completed code on a particular task will need further work or updates in the future.
When writing code, it can be easy to think that this will be the only time the code will ever need to be worked on and that no one will look at the source code again. This could not be further from the truth. Projects are constantly being maintained, improved, and refined. I now understand the importance of documenting, commenting, and testing my code for future work to be as seamless and as simple as possible for future team members.
Growing as a Professional and Mentoring
All associates are paired with an onboarding buddy when they join Clover. Your buddy is responsible for helping you to transition into your new role. They act as a friendly face to approach with basic questions.
When an intern begins their experience at a new organisation, they can find it daunting to be thrown into the middle of a team and project. It can be intimidating to constantly ask your manager questions that may seem silly or obvious. Unanswered questions can result in fundamental misunderstandings and a deficit of useful knowledge. An onboarding buddy who can point you in the right direction is a huge benefit to interns.
Having completed a previous three-month internship with Fiserv, I also had the opportunity to be an onboarding buddy for several full-time associates who joined after me. This shows that Clover trusts their interns to impart team knowledge as well as their full-time associates.
Each month every employee has a one to one check-in with their manager to discuss performance and feedback. This session gives employees a chance to talk about how they feel they are performing, if the work is challenging, what skills or training they need, and any feedback they may have on any area. Building on this, employees also have regular skip level meetings with a director to voice how they are feeling and offer suggestions. Clover genuinely cares about their associates and takes their input seriously. Even as an intern, I feel that I have a voice and an opportunity to bring value to the business.
Clover is also more than happy to invest in their interns’ skills. For my metrics project, I required a working knowledge of many AWS services that I did not have previous exposure to. This wasn’t a problem at all; Clover has knowledge bases in the form of the O’Reilly Media learning portal and Xchange, the company’s own online learning portal. Both of these have a huge variety of training courses, books, and practice exams that can be accessed at any time.
I became an AWS-Certified Cloud Practitioner through Clover. I now have a certification that looks great on my CV from completing my work for Clover to an even higher standard. While it may not be possible or even plausible for an organisation to fund certifications such as Clover does, I do think it is extremely valuable to have some form of in-house mentorship, knowledge base, or knowledge transfer that an intern can use to grow in their field.
Clover’s Culture
The variety and care for employee culture in Clover astounded me when I first joined. Being part of this award-winning culture is one of the most inspiring and memorable parts of my internship. Named one of the best medium-sized workplaces in 2021 by Great Place to Work, Clover prioritises encouragement, helpfulness, and inclusiveness.
Their Great Place to Work (GPTW) committee ensures everyone’s feedback is voiced. Regular meet-ups and presentations highlight different people’s backgrounds, giving employees the opportunity to share their culture, beliefs, and lifestyle with the rest of the organisation. Exposure to the many differing cultures adopted in Clover has resulted in an extremely diverse and socially aware workplace that allows employees from all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds to flourish.
Conclusion — Joining Clover as an Intern/Graduate
To summarise, for anyone who is designing an internship I think it is important to keep the following steps in mind:
- Give interns work that is meaningful and valuable to the organisation
- Incorporate work outside of an intern’s comfort zone and encourage them to take on responsibilities outside of their normal work tasks
- Challenge interns to look at their work from the perspective of future employees who may have to maintain, refine, or extend on their completed work
- Involve interns in activities outside of work responsibilities such as hackathons, days out, and social events
- Provide an onboarding buddy or direct point of contact who the intern can call upon in times of need
- Open avenues for learning to interns such as knowledge transfers, brown bag lunches, certifications, and company knowledge bases
- Provide a workplace that inspires growth, encourages interns to let their skills shine, and is open to feedback
Organisations that adopt the above suggestions when designing their internship program will see their interns take on greater responsibility, expand their knowledge and skills, provide a higher standard of work, and most importantly encourage future interns to join their internship program.
As my internship comes to an end and my final year in college looms ever closer, it is time for me to seriously begin weighing up my career options. Clover gave me the opportunity to grow as a professional and challenge myself by working on a production project. I have seen first-hand how Clover invests money, time, and resources into their interns to give them the ability to work on many areas of their tech stack.These elements have persuaded me to seriously consider continuing my career with Clover post-graduation.
Steven Aherne
Clover Software Engineering Intern
