Intern’s Story: Journey to be a Software Engineer
Hello there! My name is Theodorus Riyanto, and I would like to share my interesting intern story at ZebraX. A little bit of background, before I started my internship, I was still a student in Institut Teknologi Bandung, majoring in Petroleum Engineering. I can already imagine you reading this while wondering, why a petroleum engineering student, whose knowledge all about working in an oilfield, and not to mention is in his last semester, would bother looking for a software engineering internship? Well, I was just as surprised, but hang on as I’m about to spill a little bit of how I got to that point.
Not to deviate too far from my intern story, my interest in software engineering sparked when I was in college. Definitely not when I enter ITB (because if so, I would have picked a different major), nor it was when I entered my last semester as a panic diversion from my current major. It was in my first year in ITB, that I had the chance to learn about programming, in a mandatory “introduction to programming” class. At that time, it was not even software engineering, but more about algorithm and data structure that got me thinking “Wow, maybe I should explore deeper about this programming thing”. Later I was recruited as an assistant for that particular class, which was the most enjoyable experience I ever had with programming at the time.
Fast forward to my last semester, I had the chance to revisit programming since I have more free time and was not really satisfied with what I have explored so far. I have previously been working in petroleum industry and business as an intern, but it wasn’t clear for me which career path to pursue. And there was my programming experience, sitting idle, waiting for me to pick it up and see if it suits me better. Since I still have more time to spend, especially during the pandemic where remote working is a thing, I decided to give this programming thing a shot and start aiming to get a Software Engineer Intern as the starting point.
Around March, after spending months of learning, practicing, and building projects, I managed to land an internship at ZebraX, which is quite an opportunity for me considering the few skills I have and no prior internship experience in the field, but I believe they saw something in me and decided to have me as a software engineering intern.
Since it was my first internship, I expected to learn a lot and require a lot of assistance in understanding how everything works together and how I could contribute.
Luckily, I was put in one of their front-end engineering team, and my mentor was very capable of guiding me through all the questions that I had, so I could pick up faster and be productive as soon as possible. There was definitely a lot of efforts that I had to put to be able to learn so many things, but having the right mentor definitely makes it easier.
I remember the first day of my internship I was trying my best to learn as fast as possible while contributing to the project, and at the end of the day, I managed to push my first Pull Request (PR), even though it was not much for an 8-hour effort. I was the kind of person to read and search first before I ask, because I believe the process it takes to figure out something is very important to my growth as a software engineer. The work culture provides me an opportunity to do so, and that was exactly the approach I took during my internship. I could proudly say, that single PR at my first day had grown in numbers, resulting in a lot more contributions as I get better and better.
During my internship at ZebraX, I was involved in several projects that shaped me into a better developer, since I gain exposure to different styles and implementations. After my three-months internship, I definitely see a noticeable growth since the time I started my internship. I am very grateful for my kind and exceptional mentors, my supportive leads and managers, and also the friends I have made along the way that gives me assistance and keeps me on my feet. Thanks to ZebraX, now I have more confidence to walk down the road of Software Engineering!
