Actual article date: Nov 28, 2016

In the summer of 2016, we had the opportunity to work with 3 talented interns from NUS School of Computing. Here is what they have to say of their time at Jublia.

Q1 : What were your projects and what did you gain from it?

Charles:

Working in a real production environment has been very different from the academic life I have in school. Things are fast-paced and performance-oriented. I have learned to become a more independent and self-motivated person.

Barry:

The main project that I was working on involves building a backend API that allows centralised synchronising (reading and writing) of all data in the database and Google Sheets. Being a backend developer with little experience with Python, I was given the opportunity to strengthen my Python programming skills and at the same time apply what I have learned to build upon an existing product in production. Application of what I’ve learnt on the fly aided in accelerating my learning process during this internship. On top of that, while working on my projects, I was able to gain a more in-depth understanding of the development environment and other components required that comes together to form a functioning product.

Benjamin:

My projects were mostly revolving around the email system for Jublia. Just to name a few, it involved the editing of emails, finding out the status of the emails sent (i.e. webhooks), and other duties. Most of the work had required me to look up Google for the answer and to slowly put the pieces of code together in order to get it to do what I needed it to do. So, the internship taught me that most of the time you would have to be independent enough to look for the solution yourself and that you need to keep up with the deadlines. In doing so, I felt I have developed a better attitude towards programming and learning in general.

Q2: How was the internship experience?

Charles:

I picked up AngularJS skills as well as how ionic framework works. This is particularly interesting to me because I have always been a fan of JavaScript and its ecosystem. I believe the skills I have learned from this project will be very helpful to my future development work. Besides that, I have learned the importance of writing responsible code in a team. As a programmer, we need to write readable and maintainable code since there might be other people working on the same code in the future. Pulling layers of hacks and use unorthodox coding style will only make future maintenance more difficult and more prone of bugs.

Barry:

It’s really exciting to be working on and contributing to actual products with real end users. It’s just pure satisfaction to be solving issues day after day. Never a dull a moment at work, except for when I’m trying to get myself familiarised with the existing code base and stuff like that. In summary, it was a really great learning/working experience where I was able to learn more than I ever did for my past semesters in school. Nonetheless, what I’ve learnt in school has definitely helped to strengthen my foundation, which allowed me to better contribute to Jublia during my 3 months internship stint with them.

Benjamin:

At some points, it was a real eye-opener to what the working world is like. There would be times where everyone had to rush to meet deadlines and the environment became slightly more stressful than usual. However, when you see the things you make being used in real-time, you feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride in what you had been spending your time on for the past few days/weeks. Overall, there wasn’t a day in which I had nothing to do and I was always occupied with a project, which ensures that you are learning something new everyday.

Q3: How is the company culture?

Charles:

The company culture is very liberal, flexible and vibrant. We have weekly sharing of new technologies from each member of the development team. We have quarterly meeting of the company’s progress. We are open to asking each other questions and discussing difficult issues. There is no hierarchy in the company, which is perfect for bonding and communication.

Overall, working in Jublia has been an enriching journey for me and I will definitely recommend more fellow NUS students to join Jublia for a productive internship experience.

Barry:

Enjoyed the freedom to pick our own approach to come up with solutions for the projects that we are assigned to. Enjoyed the weekly sharing, when I’m not the one doing the sharing. Enjoyed starting work at 10 a.m., which allows me to not have to rush through my morning coffee.

Jublia is love, Jublia is life.

Benjamin:

Most of the time I have the liberty to find my own solutions. I don’t see other companies out there offering that level of freedom. You are expected to complete an amount of work within a stipulated time and you are also expected to keep up with company standards, which I felt in the entire process, I have benefitted a lot from. The people at Jublia are also very friendly people and they treat you as equals even though you are just an intern. In such a nurturing environment, I believe anyone who does an internship here will benefit a lot out of the experience. If you are considering your options of where to do an internship, you should definitely consider an internship at Jublia.

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