How to start a career at a software studio? Internship - Experts Zone Talks #4

Meet the 4th episode of Experts Zone Talks! Today we will talk with Junior Frontend Developer Piotr Czubak. Piotr will tell us about how to start career in IT and shares his experience.

In "How to start a career at a software studio?" podcast:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:34 - About Piotr.
• 03:03 - What did the process look like?
• 03:37 - What was the outcome of the internship?
• 04:53 - What was the idea of application?
• 06:15 - What about your first days at Liki?
• 07:47 - Is academic background important for developer work?
• 08:19 - How did the internship influence you?
• 09:30 - If you compare yourself when you first entered the Liki office and now - what is the difference?
• 10:43 - What do you think about the internship at Liki/Frontend House?

Transcription

Olga

Hi, my name is Olga and this is Expert Zone Talks. Have you ever thought about how to start a career in IT? Today we will talk with Piotr Czubak who walked all the way through, starting from being an intern to front end developer.

Hi Piotr. Nice to see you here in our studio today. As I know you started as an intern at Liki?

Piotr

Yeah, of course. It was a great adventure for me.

Olga

And today, Piotr will tell us about his journey as an intern at Liki and Frontend House. Let's talk.

Piotr

Can't wait.

Olga

Can you please tell me a few words about yourself?

Piotr

Yes, of course. So hello once again. Thank you for having me. My name is Piotr. I'm a front end developer at Liki. And before I joined this team, I was studying programming at University of Lodz.

Olga

And you started your career here at Liki and Frontend House, right?

Piotr

Yes, it was my first job. When I first met Liki at a job fair I knew exactly that this is the place I wanted to be. The people that I met there were very friendly to me and didn't treat me like a random, meaningless person, like any other jobs. Yeah. I think this is the place I want to be.

Olga

How did you find that offer?

Piotr

Well, first, I've seen Liki at a job fair and a few weeks later I've seen the offer at MlodziwLodzi page. Then I decided to apply and yeah, the offer was looking nice, I felt confident after talking about this job at the job fair, so I decided to try.

Olga

What skills are necessary to become an intern?

Piotr

Well, a lot of people will tell you that you need to know perfectly a lot of technologies like React, JavaScript, but from my perspective, this is not necessary. I think the best skill you can have is communication. From my perspective, when I joined the internship, I knew a little bit of JavaScript and a little bit of React. But yeah, I think that soft skills are most important and it's not about how good you know some technologies, but it's about how willing you are to learn them.

Olga

So the will is the most important?

Piotr

Yes. Yes.

Olga

Every developer who comes here with my studio tells me that communication skills are the most important. So coincidence?

Piotr

I don’t think so.

Olga

OK and what does the internship look like? So you had mentors and students, right?

Piotr

Yes, we had three interns and we had two mentors. They were teaching us a lot of new things, a lot of technologies. And they were checking our code whenever we wrote something. So we learned from that. They gave us a lot of good advices throughout the internship, so the code now looks a lot better. And even after the first week it looked a lot better.

Olga

And you created an application, right? A game even?

Piotr

Yes. During the internship, we had to prepare a game in just a month. So we had to work fast and hard. It wasn't a simple thing because it was an internship and we didn't know a lot about the technologies that we had to use. So we had weekly meetings where we talk about what went good and what went wrong, so we could improve our work. Even after the first week, we improved our communication once again. Communication is the key and I will tell it every time. So, yeah, even the first week we improved our communication, which really spded up the work, and every week we met to decide what to do next in the next week. So we exactly knew what we had to do.

Olga

So you had an exact plan?

Piotr

Yes, the management was really, really good.

Olga

It's cool. As for me, creating a game in just one month is incredible.

Piotr

Yeah, it wasn't easy, but we did it.

Olga

Good for you, great job. And what was the game about?

Piotr

Well, the game was to promote EC1 - center for narrative interaction.

Olga

Center for comics and interactive narration.

Piotr

Narration yes. So the game was based on Tytus, Romek and A’Tomek, the famous Polish comics. So levels in the game were designed exactly to look like the original floors in EC1. The designers did a really good job there.

Olga

Designers did and... did. the developers?

Piotr

Yes, I think the game is playable and believe me, you have to try it, it's a lot of fun. During the game you have to collect as many points by collecting the collectibles and you have to dodge obstacles and enemies and at the end of the level you will meet one of main heroes from the comic book and they will tell you about the level you are on and a little bit about the level you will encounter next.

Olga

So dodge obstacles and enemies sounds like life. Was it easy for you to adopt at Liki and Frontend House? How did you feel on your first days?

Piotr

OK, so the first days weren't so great for me because I had to change my way of thinking from university to work environment. But as soon as I got to know people and I wasn't afraid to ask for help, once again communication is the key, I just asked for help and I got it. So it really helped me adapt. Like I said before, good management because I knew exactly what I had to do, so that helped me to adapt a lot quicker and easier. After the first week, it was simpler and simpler every day.

Olga

And do you think that a student's way of thinking differs from the working approach?

Piotr

Yes, I think it does a lot, because at university you get one task to do and you have, like one or two weeks, and it depends only on you when you do it. But at work, you will have to manage your own time. You will have to know exactly what to do and how to do it. And if you encounter any problem you have to look for an answer instantly. It's not so easy at first because you have to do it now. And it's eight hours every day of work, but I think it's even better than university because you learn a lot more, a lot quicker, and it’s fun.

Olga

It’s like, welcome to real life.

Piotr

Yes, exactly.

Olga

And do you think that university background is important? Necessary?

Piotr

Well, I can talk only about myself here, and my feelings, and I think university won't teach you how to work. I think university will grant you the knowledge about how to learn and the technology, will show you some cool tricks, but it will not grant you work right now. You have to learn yourself. And yeah, I think that internship is the perfect place to learn new technology.

Olga

How did the internship influence you?

Piotr

It really helped me with not being afraid to ask for help. Once again, I told you many times, I learned how to communicate with other people. And people will tell you that I talk about it a lot and too much, but now it's really important for me, because this is the most important thing I've learned during the internship. Just talk with people, ask for help if you need it, because sometimes you just stuck on some solution that is not so great. Maybe it’s even bad, and you will spend hours doing this. But if you just ask for help, someone will get you back on the right track and you will do your job quicker, faster, better, and with a lot more fun with it.

Olga

It’s important to love what you do and to have fun. It's nice to hear that you like what you do.

Piotr

To be honest, I didn't really know what I wanted to do before I joined Liki. But now that I'm here, it proves that this is what I wanted to do. So here I am.

Olga

If you compare yourself when you first entered the Liki office and now, when you're a front end developer, what is the difference?

Piotr

Oh, I think the biggest difference is the way I look at the process of building an application, because now I know that a lot of functions, a lot of components that we built requires more time, more thinking about them that at first think.
The second big difference that I see in myself is that... the first time I walked into Liki office, I’ve learned how to work in an office environment, but a few weeks later, the lockdown happened, so I've learned how to work from any place and any time. So this is not a problem right now. If I have to work from home, I can do it freely so it doesn't matter for me. So I think that's a great thing to have... to know that you can work from anywhere at any time

Olga

And what can you say about your impressions about the Liki internship? Just in two words to conclude?

Piotr

Well, I think I can’t say that in just two words. I will say, the internship was very friendly, very funny and very good for me. Like I said, I've learned a lot during the internship. It was not so long, but the knowledge that I got was really, really big.

Olga

So you think it's worth checking the MlodziwLodzi page, and Liki, and Frontend House careers?

Piotr

Yes, of course. If you want to join the internship at Liki, you should check it, because it's really worth it.

Olga

OK, now I'm thinking about going to a Liki internship. Why not? I have communication skills, not technology. So maybe if you say that the most important thing...

Piotr

Well I think you need some technology. But yeah, I think you have to learn something before that.

Olga

Thank you for today's conversation. It was very interesting. And thank you for watching. You can like our other videos and watch them.

Piotr

Remember to like, subscribe and share this video on your social media.

Olga

Thank you so much and see you in the next podcast. Thank you.