The Student Series: Meet League’s Legendary Engineering Co-ops
This summer, we were lucky enough to have had six amazing Engineering interns join our rocket ship. Learn all about the great product features they’re been shipping!
“During the first month, I got access to the surfboard. During the second, I was stumbling on the surfboard. By the third month, I found the wave… and during the fourth month, I was riding it.”
— Nicholas, Engineering Co-op
Anne: You’re all embedded within Product Squads, building impactful things. How would you describe what you do on a daily basis, and what you were working on this summer?
Dani: I’m working on the Enrollment Team. This part of the app is where League members enroll into the benefits that are the best fit for their needs. It’s also the admin tool where our Operations Team can configure the benefit options for our clients. This summer, I’ve worked on a number of new features including discovery work, and the gender identity option (which was also recently featured in Forbes). This is a feature that allows League Members to specify additional options for their gender identity and expression 🌈.
Alex: I worked on the Integrations Team, helping new hires get onboarded onto the League app. It’s really interesting work, because many of our clients operate in different industries and their members have different needs. I’ve been able to build and maintain our integrations that support those needs.
Nicholas: I’ve been working on the Platform Team this summer. Our stakeholders are internal (our Engineering Team!), and we are building tools to make their workflows easier. We’ve been migrating apps to k8s, and it’s been awesome experience!
Lucas: I’ve been working as a backend developer on the Member Success team. I’ve been supporting our chat tools, onboarding new companies and working on renewals as well as doing some testing and writing (lots of) back-end code. During my co-op, I helped build a couple of different features that had an impact on the company. A data generation project I supported helped us conduct testing a lot more efficiently. I also worked on a feature that allowed our internal teams to configure large amounts of benefits, dramatically reducing the time needed to complete this process manually.
Tanjot: I’ve been working on the Wallet Team as an Android developer. This is where cards that would normally be physically stored in your wallet (and often misplaced over time!) are stored securely in the League app instead. We work to ensure that our wallet is integrated elsewhere in our app, and ensure that the configurations that power the wallet are working properly, too.
Sophie: I’m working on the Health Team (specially on the Frontend web experience). On a daily basis, I’m typically building out web components for our Member app, which enables League Members to enroll in Health Programs, get rewarded for daily activities, and chat with Health Concierge. (a real, live nurse in your pocket!) Building features in the Health team includes collaborating with Designers and Product Managers, planning out architecture, organizing data to display and — my favourite — lots and lots of CSS styling. I also had the chance to contribute to League’s Design System, Genesis, and build out tokens and accessible components for developers to use across teams.
Anne: What’s really stood out to you during your time here at League?
Nicholas: The people here are amazing. Everyone was always willing to help. They were extremely patient. League is a very positive and healthy learning environment — I was never afraid to ask questions.
I was treated like a full-time employee, not a student, which I think we can all attest to after working at League.
Dani: It was great to be involved in valuable meetings (especially architecture reviews) where I was able to learn from everyone around me. I was able to pick things up really quickly (make sure you’re attending our daily standups!) It’s amazing to see how much we’ve all grown together since starting in May.
Alex: The accountability that we all have is great — we are all responsible for key business goals and are doing real work, not just student projects. It’s very impressive to see how what we’re working on directly impacts the business.
Our work can — and has — made a big difference here, which is really rewarding.
Lucas: The amount of trust that is put in us is remarkable. We are writing meaningful code, and it’s impactful to hear how the work we are doing every day really is impacting people’s lives and the way they are able to interact with their health. It’s very validating to hear the “impact stories” from the Health team at our weekly Townhall, where our Health Concierge team shares real ways we’ve helped our Members overcome hurdles in their health that week.
Tanjot: I have two elements to answer this question!
1) The development process is really robust — we are always ensuring all aspects of our work are done correctly. We are constantly performing routine maintenance to make everyone’s lives easier, and to ensure a great experience for all users.
2) The mentorship offered here has been really valuable — you always have someone to guide you through the process, answer questions and offer you personal tips.
Sophie: I think ownership is a huge part of being a co-op here at League. It has allowed me to not only succeed, but to make mistakes and learn how to rectify them. Involvement is also huge – I’ve been able to attend sessions that I wasn’t directly related to, but have allowed me to learn about so much more than what’s in my job description. I also really enjoyed doing user interviews with the Design team. It’s really rewarding to see how people interact with the features I’ve built, and how they impact our Members’ lives for the better!
Anne: How would you describe your time here this summer as different to what you initially were expecting?
Lucas: I’d worked with some great people in the past, but the people here really blew my mind! The work is so rewarding and impactful, so it’s been the perfect intersection of checking off multiple boxes during my time here — that, to me at this stage in my career is pure GOLD!
Tanjot: I wanted to come out of this co-op having learned a lot, while being in an environment that cultivated my learning. League has done both of these things because of the great people we have here.
Alex: The level of practices and standards we adhere to here is amazing to be a part of and learn from. It’s very robust, and everything from an engineering standpoint is carried out to a T. This has been a great experience to learn more about testing on both the front-end and back-end, and to work with our awesome Security Team.
Dani: The people here are great! At the beginning of the term I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up because everyone was so smart! It’s been such a satisfying experience to learn as much as I possibly can, ask a lot of questions and feel extremely comfortable as a valued member on the team.
Nicholas: I wanted to get better domain knowledge, and usually four months isn’t enough… but through reading our weekly CTO report and with the help of the team, I was able to gain great visibility into the specific projects that all teams in Engineering are working on — and how they relate to each other.
Sophie: Since I was a returning co-op, I thought I knew what to expect, but this time around there was a lot more feature work for me with such a deep roadmap. As an intern, this kind of time is the best as I get to build so many things ✨. I also can’t learn enough here! Every day I become a better developer and grow so much with all the inspiring and experienced people working at League.
Anne: Who is the most inspiring person you’ve met here during your time at League?
Dani: Andrew, League’s Vice-President of Strategy and Corporate Development! As part of the summer intern program, he chatted with us and it was amazing. He gave a great talk, including life advice and philosophy which was so cool. I also am inspired every day by all of the women we have leading our Product, Design and Engineering teams — our AVP of Product, Breanna, our Director of Design, Andréa (Dré), and our Engineering Director, Margaret. These women, along with many others, are an inspiration to me.
Alex: I have to say our CEO, Mike! He’s got an amazing track record of success prior to League, having co-founded Kobo along with League’s COO, Dan Leibu and CTO, Dan Galperin. It’s been great for us as interns to sit down with him this summer and learn about how League came to be, and the exciting things that lie ahead for the company.
Tanjot: Some of the individuals who are past co-ops and newer in their careers are awesome to work with, including Rithu, Ursula, Gourave and Janice. They’re really hungry to learn, and are very involved outside of work too — it’s awesome to aspire to be like them!
Nicholas: James, League’s Sr. Platform Developer, is awesome! He’s really passionate about everything — has crazy domain knowledge and he does so much learning outside of work as well. It really demonstrates his passion for what we are doing here and he’s always willing to help. Ray Mendoza, Director of Engineering, is also amazing as a leader on our team.
Lucas: Getting to know Reilly during my work term has been such a pleasure. He’s very supportive, has built a ton of infrastructure and is very inspiring. He’s built so much and has hands in everything — he’s great.
Sophie: AHH I met so many amazing inspiring people here at League! On my team working with Doug, Connor, and Anson so closely they’ve taught me a lot about web development. Michael’s ability to do his job so well yet be such a helpful and approachable is amazing to me and I hope to be that valuable someday. Viv and Ursula were like big sisters to me and their passion, drive, humour, and ability are truly inspiring.
Anne: What’s a word of advice you might want to offer someone considering joining League as an intern / co-op student or as a new full-time hire?
Alex: Have a good work ethic, try your best and come hungry to learn. Make sure you’re ready for it! :)
Lucas: Work really hard and expect a lot of responsibility and fulfillment along the way.
Nicholas: Prepare to be accountable for the work you’re doing, own it and enjoy the ride.
Dani: Take advantage of all of the great people who are working here, ask questions and be open to learning as much as you possibly can.
Tanjot: Learn what fulfills you and how to make an impact through talking to different people here. You can engage with different people, be curious and you’re able to get outside your comfort zone to learn. Being resourceful and everything then makes sense!
Sophie: “Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.” — Jean-Paul Sartre
Anne: What are three or four words each that sum up your experience working here?
Lucas: Hmm… May, June, July and August??!? Haha — just kidding! I’d have to say engaging, weighty (impactful moving things along) and fun.
Tanjot: Happiness (I want to come in every day!), fulfillment, great culture, and believing in work-life balance.
Nicholas: For me it was like an analogy: during the first month I got the surfboard, during the second month, I was stumbling on the surfboard, by the third month I found the wave and during the fourth month I was riding the wave (into the sunset LOL)!
Dani: *spends two minutes looking up great synonyms!* I’d have to say reliability, rewarding work that is demanding and delightful when you reach the desired outcome.
Alex: Fast-paced, enticing and productive.
Sophie: Three words: Health Benefits Experience (HBX)!
Anne: Anything else you’d like us to know about?
*Summarized many great things!*
- Ability to participate on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee
- Celebrated pride events
- Going to the Raptors parade — our office is right beside where it took place!
- The Meetups and Engineering Open House were really informative and it’s great to see how League opens its doors to the wider community
- The intern program was awesome — specifically the LinkedIn / resume workshops and chats with some members of the execs
Interested in learning more about our internship and co-op programs? Feel free to reach out at careers@league.com.
