How HNGInternship Shortened My Journey to Becoming a World-class Developer
It all started with forLoop Uyo. forLoop is one of the largest tech meetups in Nigeria and Africa at large. It was there that the CTO of Hotels.ng, Neo Ighodaro announced the opening of registration for version 2.0 of the Hotels.ng internship. As if it had been pre-arranged for me from the beginning of time, I hesitated not a bit to register.
Hotels.ng is the largest hotel booking company in Nigeria that’s fast becoming one of the largest tech company that’s bent on expanding the tech eco-system in Nigeria and Africa at large.
Before I proceed to tell the story of how the internship transformed my life, let me summarize it this way:
Participating in Hotels.ng internship 2.0 shortened my journey to becoming a world-class developer I am aspiring to be.
Before I joined the internship I had hosted my first web app courtesy of a couple of mentoring from tribenigeria and was already having the feeling of a developer but little did I know I had not started. In this article, I’ll be telling my story of how HNGInternship (Hotels.ng Internship) transformed me and placed me many steps closer to becoming a world-class developer.
- Remote Collaboration
The internship was basically remote based. I was exposed to working with people I do not see physically, interact with them, resolve conflicts between teammates and work together to deliver a project without seeing each other.
I got to learn how to use the tools that developers use to collaborate remotely on a project. It was my first experience in using slack channel Workspace. I learned how to extensively use Git for version control. Though I already had shallow knowledge about Git, it was during this internship that I actually learnt in-depth how to use it to a point I can comfortably say I know how to use Git. I also learned how to use Figma, though not very well because I was more focused on my Backend thing but at least I know it’s role in design.
- Project Management
I learned the roles of a project manager in product development. I got exposed to several tools used in project management. One of them is the pivotal tracker. I learned the practical processes involved in translating an idea into a product. In one of the occasions, my team was given the privilege to conceive a project and build, we were made to learn that the next thing after conceiving an idea is not to jump into building. It was then that I heard of traction planning for the first time. It’s the result of the traction planning that determines if one can proceed to build a product or not before thinking about designing and the rest.
- Technical Writing
I never knew the importance of technical writing as a developer until I participated in the internship. The fear of how to start was broken as I had no option than to publish a technical article as one of the requirements to be promoted to the next stage (in one of the occasions)or risk disabling and eventual cut-out from the internship and that was how I published my first article, though there may be lots of shortfalls in it, at least I started something from somewhere. And today I’ve published three articles and still counting.
- Network of Developers
The saying that two good heads are better than one is completely true. I got connected to a network of developer friends that motivate me to press on even when there seems to be no strength. Not only motivation, I learned a lot from them on daily basis from discussions, jokes, and memes. Sometimes when I am coding late night, I get encouraged when I learn my friends are all awake coding as well, the fire gets boosted to fire on. Nothing is more fun than a Dev cracks a tech joke and there are other friends that understand the technicality of the joke, lol.
- Ability to Beat Deadline
It was a popular saying among the interns that the fear of being disabled from slack is the beginning of seriousness. We were over 2000 interns that started the internship but about 50 made it to graduation. That’s amazing. It’s either you deliver your task as at when due or be booted out. I learned how to code all through the night without coffee just to get my task delivered and be promoted to the next stage. There were a total of 10 stages in the internship.
- I Became a Better Developer
This is the summary of the whole story! I became a better developer closer to becoming world-class.
I learned Javascript, unlike before the internship, I had always feared Javascript and had always done all to skillfully dodge it, I had no option than learn it within a very short while thanks to codecademy.com. This equally opened my understanding of AJAX and APIs.
My story isn’t complete if I’ve not talked about my backend skills. I specialise in backend development. I could only write vanilla PHP before I joined the internship but today I can comfortably say that I’m good in Laravel framework. During the course of the internship, I was the backend lead for two projects: Project Car-Hire (though wasn’t completed because it was dropped along the line) and Project Human ATM (a platform that enables people in remote areas without ATMs to withdraw and deposit cash seamlessly). In these projects I always did the larger part of it not because I allocate them to myself but because I always dedicated and sacrificed more than others and this improved my skill greatly as I was always under the obligation to learn new stuff to be able to deliver the tasks.
Conclusion
My sincere gratitude goes to the CEO of Hotels.ng, Mark Essien for giving me the opportunity to participate and his relentless mentoring during and after the internship and also to all the moderators Okoye Chidi and Seyi Onifade and all the awesome interns Nwanze Franklin, Chidume Nnamdi, Ndubuisi Onyemenam just to mention but a few who in one way or the other imparted positively in me during the course of the internship I say a big thank you.
In a special way I thank the CEO of @Devamplifyhub, Mr Kal Chuka for providing me with a coding conducive hub, constant power and mentoring throughout the internship and to the entire Devs at @Devamplifyhub, you guys rock.
