FishingBooker software intern Katarina

Role Spotlight: Software Intern

Our developers power the machine behind the FishingBooker platform, making sure all the pieces come together seamlessly. Today, our colleague Katarina, who’s been in the company for a year, will tell us how it is to be a Software Intern.

How did you decide to work as an intern at FishingBooker?

I think it was towards the third year of my undergraduate studies that I started thinking about how it would be good to find a summer internship. I saw a FishingBooker ad on Facebook, researched the company, and found a couple of interesting articles about them.

I really liked the idea of how the company started and the benefits package they offered looked great. It was my very first job interview, so I wasn’t really expecting to shine. I figured that I’d still like to give it a shot and see what happens. That’s how it all started.

What kind of projects have you worked on?

What I love the most about working here is the number and variety of projects you can work on. You get to choose what you want to focus on at a particular moment. There are major projects where you act as a project owner, you oversee the unveiling of the project, from the initial stages until it goes live.

Of course, you get full support from your mentors and advice from your colleagues, and you really feel ownership over the project. I found that to be the most challenging but also the most exciting part of my internship. It is this feeling that makes you commit fully to making the project come to life successfully.

I worked on a number of projects that really made an impact on the efficiency of non-dev teams. They use our internal tools to do their jobs, so it is important that everything works great. Once you see that your work has helped them be better at their job, it really makes you feel good and appreciative of the work you put in.

The biggest challenge for me was building our own CRM tool. It lets all our customer-facing teams have a centralized place where they can find and exchange business information so that we make sure our customers get the best from our platform.

We decided to abandon external services and create our own tool. It uses a lot of information and it is such a big part of the system, that at first, I was a bit scared. But my mentor really helped me through – she laid a solid foundation, so it was easier for me to add more features and improve it. I also had a chance to work on creating our own ATS (applicant tracking system) for our hiring platform, through integration with Basecamp (an online communication tool), via OAUTH2. Plus, I enabled creating more personalized, automatic emails so that each of our customers could have a smoother experience.

A slightly different project was working on About us page. I didn’t know a lot about frontend, so I paired up with one of our designers who happens to be a frontend ninja (laugh). We worked on it side by side, it was like taking private frontend lessons. I had all the support I needed, so it was a great learning experience for me.

What did your onboarding look like?

Two colleagues, who actually were my mentors, along with Vukan, our CEO, onboarded me at the very beginning. At first, I learned about the company business model, teams, how the dev team works, and finally, the tools I would be using, as well as ongoing and future projects. Another girl, Jelena, and I started working here at the same time. During the first two months, our mentors were available to us full-time, for any questions we might possibly have. As the projects took off, we became more and more independent.

What skills have you developed during your internship?

As a developer, I learn about good coding practices every day. And I’ve learned another key skill here – how to present your projects to non-dev teams, how to collaborate on these projects with other teams, and how to do project planning, as a lot of our projects are cross-functional and involve several different teams. I’ve also learned how to be open to other people’s opinions and how to work with others to find the best solution. You work with various people, so it’s important to learn how to better present and communicate your ideas.

What’s the most important lesson you have learned here?

My biggest learning here was how to have discussions with my colleagues, expresses my views and ideas, and how to give and receive feedback. I’ve also learned how to be more patient and think things through before acting, which has helped me become even better at what I do. Learning is a process, it takes time, but it pays off big time. I had a chance to learn things thoroughly here.

Any words for the people who are about to start as a software intern here?

This is a perfect company when you’re at the beginning of your career, especially if this is your first working experience. They are fully supportive and will help you get the best skills for your job. Whichever way you choose to improve your skills, whether it’s books, courses, or conferences, they will support you to the fullest.

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