From a newbie to landing a well-paid tech internship — while still in college
Meet Athul Cyriac Ajay. Currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from College of Engineering Kidangoor, he is also a GitHub campus expert and has recently got a paid internship at Frappe; a role that aligns with his interest in coding — what a superstar! 🙌
Presenting the sixth story in the series from TinkerHub about young achievers and their success stories that begin with a technology learning culture —
Read our previous story here:
Hi Athul! Can you tell us a little more about you?
Hey. I’m from Kottayam, Kerala. I’m a student developer, a GitHub Campus Expert and an Auth0 Ambassador. I spend my weekends attending hackathons and hacking on my side projects.
I write technical blogs for Twilio and recently for Logrocket.
I also have my personal blog where I write about my side projects and other experiences.
Check out a few of Athul’s projects here:
Was there a defining moment when you knew coding was meant for you?
My love for tech has been fostered since I was a child. I loved pulling things apart and trying to put them back together. I’d often be found with my Pappa trying to fix things around the house. I was the ‘fixer’ which I guess is another term for an ‘engineer’.
When I started school I was instantly crazy about tech quizzes. In grade12, I attended my first engineering university tech quiz program RITU at RIT Kottayam. Seeing the works of engineers in all different fields, particularly Gopiyettan’s project, solidified the idea of becoming an engineer.
I’m a Python and Go lover. I experimented with python, after my 12th board exams. Later on, after joining college, I went on to write projects in Django and Flask. I shifted from python to Go in the late 2019.
Long story short — I’ve always been a developer.
How were you introduced to GitHub?
I created a GitHub account in the first year of my college. Being fairly new to git and GitHub, I had a hard time working through it. My mentor, GKS, told me the value of a GitHub profile and I started building repos for the silliest of things (even now 😀 ).
I learned the basics of working with git version control and the Github website using the Youtube playlist ‘Git and GitHub for poets’ — by The Coding Train.
From a Beginner to being a GitHub Campus Expert, tell us your journey
While browsing through A-to-Z-Resources-for-Students, one day I landed on the GitHub Campus Expert webpage. I skimmed through the page and understood that this program will help me start a community on my campus, and so I hit the Become a Campus Expert button.
I did some research on this and found that there was no one from Kerala. So I thought it would be cool to be the first GitHub Campus Expert from Kerala. On the GitHub Campus Expert webpage, I was introduced to Musthaq Ahamad, a GitHub Campus Expert from Mangalore. I contacted him to enquire about the application procedure and he was more than happy to guide me. It was the beginning of a good friendship.
I first applied for the GitHub Student Developer Pack after which I entered the training phase. I genuinely believe the modules designed for the training phase helped me gain a clear vision of what a community is, how to plan & host events & what skills I need to work on to be an effective leader.
After I completed the modules, my submissions underwent a detailed review. Towards the last week of February 2019, the submissions were accepted and after a final round interview- Voila! I became a GitHub Campus Expert.
This role must have given you a lot of exposure…
Definitely. I could finally organize meetings, events, hackathons! I incorporated around 15+ workshops to teach topics such as git and opensource for beginners. The coolest part of GCE journey is getting amazing swags & limited edition stickers for free!
I used to collect a lot of limited edition stickers and swags and give them to new faces I met at an event.
So i was often pictured like a Sticker Santa Claus — making friends with limited edition stickers! 😆
About GitHub, its importance & some of your best projects
I don’t know how to put it into words… Well, GitHub is a website that allows you to save, download & collaborate on code with others.
Back in 2009, if you wanted to make an improvement to an open-source project, you had to write the code, save it using a version control system and then email the new set of changes to one of the core committers. They look at your code and email you back the comments. If they have suggestions, you make those changes, save them and send them an updated patch file. Then the committer would probably forward your email to a couple of other contributors for their feedback, send it to you, and then you would send a final patch with approved changes for them to merge in.
Phew, that’s a whole lot of work, yes?
GitHub transformed all of this. With any project hosted publicly on GitHub, all you have to do is view the project, click the “fork” button and get your own copy of the project, make the changes you want, save them and click a button to submit a “pull request”- that one of the owners of the project “pull” your work into their code. By doing this, anyone interested in the project can review your work and provide feedback.
One of my best projects is Shelby — A fast prompt for Unix & Mac OS, written in Go. This project of mine earned 145+ stars on GitHub. It was incredible!
You can find Shelby on GitHub here. Do give it a try and open an issue or two if you find anything unusual 😄.
Talk about your love for Hackathons
Addiction!
That’s the first word that comes to my mind whenever I think about Hackathons!
Two years ago, I went to my first hackathon ever! It was ETH India, Asia’s biggest Ethereum hackathon. Since then, I’ve been signing up or applying to go to many hackathons and participated whenever I could. I’ve organized about 2 hackathons and attended 6 hackathons from 2019 to 2020 Feb. I was the runner-up in Hack Camp Kochi, MLH & Hack Club, 2020 and category prize winner in Rookie Hacks, MLH, 2020.
Hackathons 101 — Why you should consider going to one
“ So do you like…hack into people’s computers during a hackathon?”
Apart from the incredible swags, participating in a Hackathon is a great way of enjoying tech as a whole. It encapsulated the meaning of community and technology.
Joe Nash (@jna_sh) once told us ( Campus Experts) the following:
“ There’s no other place in this world where you can spend 24hrs with a bunch of passionate people together in a room, helping each other grow & learn, brainstorming to come up with an innovation that could be a potential solution to a real-life problem.”
The first hackathon I went to, got me 8 T-shirts, a bag, 2 books & stickers.
A funny Real Life story :
As soon as I stepped into my house after a hackathon, Dad looks at me with all the merch, chuckles and says “ Looks like we just have to get you a laptop with a good internet connection. Hackathons will take care of you about clothes and accessories!”.
Do you have a mentor?
I’ve had the fortune of finding some of the great mentors. Gopi Krishnan Sasikumar (GKS) has always been an integral part of my career.
Then there is Gokuldas KM, he is more like a best friend. If he hadn’t been my mentor I wouldn’t be here today.
Musthaq Ahamad is my real inspiration to learn JavaScript. He is the main community guy and an incredible hacker!
Akshay Uthaman — my senior, is the webdesign lord. We’ve always been mere onlookers while he coded awesome stuff.
All my mentors are ever-present in providing guidelines and constructive criticism. I can only hope to return the favor sometime in the future.
Can you tell us a little more about initiatives or community efforts you’ve been involved in or helped support?
Over the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to give talks and mentor some even more amazing people.
Nobody knows everything. This means there’s always an opportunity to learn from or teach someone else. In tech especially, everyone is a beginner at something.
I have been a speaker at 15+ workshops in colleges and hackathons across Kerala. I was the mentor for Go programming track for TinkerHub Foundation Learn From Home initiative. I recently mentored a project for Munnar Tourism.
Let’s talk about your recent achievement. How did you get your paid internship at Frappe?
Through TinkerHub Foundation HireHack program.
All TinkerHub Foundation placement activities like Hiring/internship are branded as HireHack. This program connects tech companies with prospective employees.
I wanted to do a paid internship in Python development before my final year of college. So, I contacted Mehar MP and asked him about it. He referred me to Rushabh Mehta, CEO of Frappe, and I was asked to send my profile URLs. He must have been impressed by my work because I got an offer letter the following day.
Referrals are the single best way to land top offers.
A candidate with a referral is much more likely to have their resume read, land an interview, and ultimately, get an offer.
A big thankyou to Mehar MP and TinkerHub Foundation for helping me grow my career in tech!
Congratulations Athul. Now that you’re getting ready for this next phase, how has being involved in communities been a part of your learning experience?
Getting involved in a tech community allows you to develop, grow & sharpen your skills that you would not otherwise find time to do.
I strongly believe in the concept of “Pay it Forward” — Put it simply :
If i mentor someone, that mentee will then go on to mentor someone else.
I’ve been a part of TinkerHub Foundationfor a long time now. What an incredible community for networking, exchanging knowledge & supporting each other’s successes!
I’m also a part of open-source club, CEK chapter of TinkerHub, IEDC & DSC.
How to know when one is job-ready?
(smiling)
“ You don’t. It’s a leap of faith” — Peter B Parker
It’s an exciting time to be in Tech. A lot is happening, a lot is changing and a lot is on the horizon. If you could give a piece of advice to young developers, what would it be?
We are all the results of the choices we make. Be confident about your choices, work on yourself and improve your skills so as to align with your intentions, values, goals and dreams.
Go to hackathons, Attend workshops/events, meet new people — It can excel you in every way!
Working hard is important, yes — But so is taking breaks. Take breaks however you feel suits you best. Have a cup of coffee, a small chat with your friend or go outside and get some fresh air! It’ll do your mind good 😃
Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure to have you, Athul. You’re an inspiration. We can’t wait to follow your career journey! ✨
We hope you had a great time reading Athul’s story :)
This TinkerHub story was brought to you by Fathima Nihla Latheef from the TinkerHub Team! If you loved reading this post, show your appreciation by clapping below! Stay tuned to us for more reads on learning, building and collaborating.
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