After three successful interviews, an introductory one and two technical ones, Roxi, whom you might know if you’ve been to at least one IT job fair, called us to deliver the good news: We were about to be Altom interns!
We joined the team right in time for the 11th Altom anniversary. Before we even started working, we had a chance to spend a weekend in nature and get to know our future colleagues better. Quite a way to begin an internship, right?
How the project started
During our internship, we got to work on a unique and fun project, not to mention it involved bikes! If you love outdoor events and festivals, you might have heard of the guys from Reborn Bikes, or maybe you even participated in one of their Reborn Sprints competitions. But just in case you haven’t, Reborn Sprints is a competition where two participants have to ride their bikes as fast as they can to beat the other. You need data to pick a winner, and thus our story begins.
Our purpose for this project was to build a web app that displays the competitor’s data – such as time, speed, and distance – in real-time. The main points of focus were performance, design of the application, and making sure the app runs without an internet connection.
Part 1: Summer
The first weeks were all about development. We accepted the challenge to learn new technologies such as Ember Js, Flask, and SQLite and master them sufficiently well to build an application as cool as the bikes themselves.
“I expected to learn to use the team members’ feedback for improving my coding style. Since I was new to web development, learning the application flow was useful for my future university assignments. As a result, I developed the ability to adapt quickly to new technologies, which I found useful in the project I was assigned after the internship. Because I continued working during the academic year, I learned to manage my time more efficiently.”
Ionuț
Quick after, our team got bigger, and the software testing interns joined us to develop our project further.
“I had no prior experience in testing, but this was not an impediment. From the first day, I was introduced to this vast world. All my colleagues were so nice and understanding, willing to help every time I needed them. It was a pleasure working and learning in this friendly environment. After three weeks, I received the big news: I would work on the Reborn project together with the dev interns. Looking back, I could not have asked for a better project. It was challenging, and it helped me develop in so many ways: I learned how to work in a team, to identify the needs of other members, to give and receive feedback, and to be more organized; skills that now I use and practice every single day.”
Diana
We participated in mob programming sessions, a Github workshop, and a SCRUM workshop to better understand the new technologies and improve working together. The project was divided into stories and tasks, well organized on our Gitlab board.
“Reborn Sprints was the best project to start my great journey with. It was fun, dynamic, and challenging. The thing that distinguished this project was the bikes, which made it the best and most exciting activity from the office. The things that distinguished our team were communication, feedback, reliance on others, and great organization. On the Git dashboard, we had a column “Testing” where the ready for testing tickets got. We tested the application according to the requirements, and we were logging bugs frequently. In our daily meetings, we would discuss the issues, and together we would try to understand what was causing them. All this organization, communication, and continuous feedback made the learning process easy and enjoyable. We were a courageous team, and I am happy that I got to work on this project. I learned a lot, and I also had plenty of fun. “
Didi
In the beginning, we did not have the actual bikes at the office, which turned out to be quite a challenge for testing. But Altoms are nothing if not resourceful. One of our colleagues came with a creative solution. He used our 3D printer to make a bike crank model on which we mounted two sensors. Bingo-bang, now we could test the application as if the bikes were there present doing their thing.
We eventually got Zebra and Cheetah at our office, making our coffee breaks more entertaining.
By the end of summer, we reached a stable version of our application and the limits of our colleagues’ curiosity. They wanted to see what we were working on, and we wanted to know how the app was working in a real context with real participants. So we organized an event night at the office where everybody had the chance to compete!
Part 2: Autumn
After working on the Reborn Sprints project for three months, two new interns joined our team.
“For me, this experience was going to be challenging as for time management. Since I started the internship in autumn, I had to deal with both university courses and work. I was expecting lots of stress and not having time for myself. I was also very nervous about working in a team with people I didn’t know. After the first weeks, I realized I had nothing to worry about; the schedule was very flexible, my colleagues were very friendly and helpful, the work environment was relaxed. I learned many things about myself, working in a team, technologies I’ve never used before, and receiving feedback. I learned how to fulfill tasks relevant to the Reborn Sprints project and sharpen the skills I already possessed. “
Andra
We were excited to have new team members, which meant we would implement more features. We also had to face the challenge of getting our new colleagues familiar with the already implemented code. The Github and Ember workshops, mob programming, and pair programming helped them blend quickly.
“On the one hand, I was curious to see what a day in a real programmer’s life looks like and also learn new technologies. On the other hand, I was worried that the whole experience would be stressful because I was about to work during my university studies. After the first two weeks, I realized that the team members were friendly and cheerful. We had SCRUM meetings, and the schedule was flexible. We also learned how to review other team members’ code, do pair programming and mob programming, which were new concepts for me.”
Kriszta
In the following months, we developed new features and fixed many bugs. We implemented the Results page to filter the information by specific criteria for each event and the Edit event page, where the organizers could edit an event during a race. We wanted to enable participants to register for the event on a tablet, so we made the app responsive for Android and iOS. In the end, we got a cool application ready to be used for the upcoming events.
“I expected to learn how to work in a real development team and build a web application. I also expected to gain knowledge on the day-to-day task assigned and its execution process, feel how the tasks are conducted in an organization, and understand how the responsibilities are distributed among the employees. The result was close to my expectations; I’m more confident now about my technical skills and started working on one of the organization’s main projects.”
Edvin
This was our journey as interns at Altom. We had the chance to work on a real project, experiment with different technologies, and be part of a team. It set us up to become professionals who excel in our field. If you’re looking for an opportunity to make an impact in the software testing world, an internship at Altom is just what you need to start with.