These days, juniors looking into joining the IT industry don’t have it easy. But not at Codelab! We try to go beyond the usual patterns and offer internships for students every year, allowing them to consolidate and deepen the knowledge they have gained. Afterwards we even offer permanent positions to selected interns! In this article the interns will share what solutions they worked on, what technologies they encountered, what expectations they came with as well as what challenges they faced.
This year’s internship was setup in a “hybrid” model and took place both in our Szczecin and Wroclaw office. Compared to our previous remote internships this change did not result in fewer applications, as many as 19 people participated in the summer internships! In fact, opting for the hybrid model was mentioned as one of the advantages in the final surveys by the participants.
Gracjan: What I liked most was the atmosphere in the office […]. Maciej: Tuesday and Wednesday meetings in the office left me with good memories. These were moments where a great atmosphere was created, cooperation prevailed, and everyone was willing to share their knowledge and experience. Conversations, jokes and help were an integral part of these meetings, which will definitely stay in my memory for a long time. Aleksander: Working two days in the office and three days remotely was perfectly balanced so that we could both discuss the problems we were facing in person in the office and work at home.
The interns worked on a total of four projects both internally and externally.
The SCI students worked on creating a car driving simulation using Unreal Engine. The simulation allows the user to drive the car freely, along with generating telemetry data to feed the HMI demonstrators, as well as reading the position of objects in the simulation world (traffic signs, cars, pedestrians, road edge, etc.), mapping them to a 2D plane and writing them to a file. Students participating in the internship in Szczecin carried out the PONG project from the area of embedded systems. The task consisted of communicating with players via BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and sending information using the CAN bus about the movement of the palette to the HMI module, where the visual layer of the game was implemented based on the TouchGFX framework. The project was implemented according to the concept of the best-practice software development, i.e. from requirements gathering, architecture and design documentation, to implementation (in C/C++), validation and the final verification of the system. The technology stack used during the internship included Git/GitLab, Cmake, Jenkins, CubeIDE/VSCode, BLE, CAN, ARM GDB, PyQT, TouchGfx, FreeRTOS, among others.
On the other hand, the Wroclaw students were assigned to two projects. The first project concerned a corporate application for competence development and the second a license management system for one of our clients. The interns had the opportunity to learn about the software development process and SCRUM methodology by participating in planning sessions, daily stand-ups, retrospectives and demos of the work results. While developing applications, they gained valuable experience working with Spring Boot, Hibernate, Java 17, PostgreSQL, Angular, PrimeNG, HTML, CSS and Git repositories.
The Interns arrived with a variety of expectations… from a desire to develop technical skills or a chance to gain new knowledge, to the opportunity to learn about the company’s processes and standards. Did Codelab rise to the challenge? What will they remember from their internships?
Aleksander: The internship exceeded my expectations, I can’t think of a single thing I would change. One could even say that [the internship] exceeded my expectations in a positive sense. I did not expect that while doing an internship and working on a commercial project I would have such a pleasant time 🙂 I will remember the people with whom I had the pleasure of working most fondly. Dominik: Everyone was professional in their field but also understanding and helpful. I was able to learn something from everyone and expand my horizons in IT, starting from the way a large project works to the details that enhance the user experience of the application. Paweł: There are many things I will remember most fondly from my time as an intern at Codelab. First of all, I learned a lot about software development. Practical experience working on advanced projects allowed me to gain skills that are extremely valuable in the IT industry.
What the interns valued most about their internships at Codelab were the application of knowledge in practice, the large number of technologies used in the project, the support of mentors, the atmosphere and the appropriate pace of work. The participants of the summer internships worked mainly in Agile methodology and could count on substantial help from experienced professionals.
Michał: The mentors, both Michał and, for a time, Paweł, were extremely helpful and professional. They not only helped us in our work, but also steered us in the right direction, offering valuable advice and constructive feedback on our ideas. Paweł: Everyone is ready to help and willing to share their experience, which helped me a lot in my professional development. Karol: My fondest memories will be of the people who took care of us (Mariusz and Rita), there was never any problem, the daily meeting passed smoothly and in a pleasant atmosphere, they always found time for us.
However, throughout this time, some things were of course not so bright… The interns also faced many challenges. In their own words:
Paulina: The biggest technical challenge was getting familiar with the specifics of the assigned project, the documentation and the technology stack used, which also consisted of tools that were new to me. It was a challenge for me to start working in a SCRUM team and to break through to openly communicate my concerns and questions, to other employees and teams, which became easier for me over time. Aleksander: The biggest technical challenge, in my opinion, was requirements gathering and requirements engineering, because as students we had our first exposure to this in the context of a living organism. Wojtek: Due to the fact that none of the people on my team had prior experience working in SCRUM, this is what I would consider to be a major organizational challenge […]. In terms of technical challenges, I think the biggest challenge was the adaptation of OpenAPI […].
However, by their own admission, the difficulties allowed them to thrive in their current tasks.
Paulina: What surprised me was the impact I could have as an intern on actual projects. Mateusz: I was very pleased that we were treated as “normal” team [members] and had the chance to work in SCRUM. Staszek: I was surprised that I would be working on a [real] new project that I had a real impact on.
Internships are about learning, challenges, new acquaintances and diversity. This year’s edition has come to an end, and some of the participants have stayed with us permanently, which makes us extremely happy. 😊 An internships at Codelab is not only an opportunity to gain interesting experience but also a chance to get your first job, in spite of the stereotypes that proclaim that there is no place on the job market for juniors. We thank you for your contribution and commitment.
We hope to launch the next edition of our internships in in the spring. 🌷