Life During Pandemic: 3 MONTHS AS A DATA ENGINEER INTERN AT ZEBRAX
Previously, I was a Civil Engineering graduate where I only awared to civil-engineering related things. Structural building, construction management, water, and transport engineering are used to be my things and never been in my mind before that my self would have an interest in tech-related things.
Everything has started when I went to Korea to pursue my master degree at one of the best engineering schools in Korea, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). I took the Green Transportation major, I took this major because I was expecting that I would learn deeply how public transportation in Korea are so well-developed until it becomes the main transportation mode for the citizen. Ultimately, such vision drives me to implement it to Indonesia Transportation system.
However, I’ve learned a lot of new things more than what I’ve had expected before. What I learn there was mostly related to the development of self-driving car, electric vehicle, and hybrid vehicle in which during the learning process I was forced to learn programming language. It resulted in a realization for my self that this programming language is so powerful as this world is going forward faster to digitalization.
I can say that KAIST changed my dream job. After I graduated, I’ve started to looking for other opportunities that I can dive more into tech-related stuffs. I’ve realized that I only have a few skills to be working in tech-related jobs. So, I’ve decided to apply to ZebraX as an intern for the Data Team. Getting the internship offer from ZebraX feels like a blessing for me. Though I only have a few experiences working with data and programming language, ZebraX still opened the way for me to learn more how does data work in this digitalization era to support industry 4.0.
Though the current situations forced us to work from home, this was a whole new experience for me where I could not work side to side with the teams. It was probably also the first time for ZebraX to fully work from home and first experience in handling an intern by depending much on internet connection.
As an intern, I was involved in a Control Tower project as Data Engineer where I was able to see the project delivery process. It allows me to dive deeper into a tech-related job that I was already extremely curious to learn from the experts. I feel so lucky to have worked with people from different kind of backgrounds and expertises in which I can expand my networking and also widen my insight through their years of experiences.
However, let me be blatantly say that adjusting with the working pace was so overwhelming yet so challenging sometimes. Therefore, I realize that it is a good chance for me to encouraged my self to do and learn more everyday. Fortunately, working from home did not interfere me to get the guidance from ZebraX team. The Data Team Lead and other Data Team members including my mentor, the team members in the project I was engaged, and all ZebraX team members are really kind and helpful to me since my first day. I can say that they all are sincerely invested in the growth of me personally as an intern in ZebraX. Even though I know that they would lend me a hand, I also always try my best before asking whenever I found any difficulties during the working process.
I can see that my works as an intern matters and is critical to the success of the project. I feel like that kind of responsibility and trust are significant for intern’s personal and career growth. All the overwhelming feelings and struggles I have passed during the process was considered as a learning process and also an investment that would lead me into a passionate Data Engineer and Data Scientist in the next few years.
During my 3 months of internship, I realized that it is important to learn new things every single day. All in all, I can say that getting this internship opportunity from ZebraX is a good start for me crossing my career from Civil Engineer to Data Engineer and hopefully to Data Scientist later, and I am beyond grateful for this experience.
Thank you #ZebraX!
