For several years now, we’ve been running a co-op program in partnership with the University of Alberta and University of Calgary. In that time, we’ve had the chance to mentor many bright and talented students from the departments of computing science and computer engineering who chose to kick-start their careers with an internship at DevFacto. Curious to know what an internship in software consulting and product development is like? Read on to learn what some of our recent and current co-op students have to say about their internship experience. You can also access our current co-op postings on PlacePro (UofA) and CareerLink (UofC).
Co-op students Darren Tran and Anas Mohamed attending DevFacto’s 2019 QualityConf
Darren Tran
Darren is a Computer Engineering, Software Option student at the University of Alberta and a bit of a fitness fanatic. He has just finished his eight-month long internship at DevFacto.
Why did you choose DevFacto for your co-op internship?
I wanted to get the most of my co-op experience and searched for opportunities at software consulting companies. The thing that stood out to me the most about DevFacto was the emphasis on employee happiness — and from what I have experienced here, it definitely holds true!
What kinds of projects have you worked on at DevFacto?
I’ve worked on a couple of different projects, the most interesting one so far is a game portal for a high-profile corporate client the name of which our marketing team won’t let me share. Essentially, the project is made up of four elements: a website, an admin site, a trivia game (which will be part of the website) and a back-end to support it all. The game drives visitors to the website, the central hub with information about the products our client is selling. Visitors will get to play games to earn rewards and win prizes.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about this internship is being able to work with brand new technologies that I have never been exposed to before. For example in my last project, I worked on the back-end with AWS and Serverless.
What skills did you get to develop and practice during your internship?
On the technical side of things, I have learned new programming languages, frameworks and libraries – React, Typescript, Serverless just to name a few. I have also learned to work with others in the agile/scrum process. In terms of soft skills, I feel like I learned how to better communicate my ideas with other project members. Having a daily stand up with the team opens communication and helps us keep track of the tasks between team members.
Can you share your favorite DevFacto experience so far?
Definitely Friday beer o’clock to wrap up the week! Aside from that, meeting and learning from all the amazing people around the office has been invaluable.
Anas Mohamed
Anas is a Computing Science student at University of Alberta and he’s currently completing an eight-month internship at DevFacto. When he’s not working with computers, he’s picking up new hobbies. His newest one is learning Japanese.
Why did you choose DevFacto for your co-op internship?
The biggest appeal of an internship is the experience. With that in mind, I chose DevFacto because I felt assured that there would be no lack of volume or variety in the experience that I would gain.
What has been the most interesting project that you have worked on so far?
Beacon, for sure. Beacon is an internal project focused on rebuilding a tool called TechRadar. The tool was used for discussing various tech DevFacto teams wanted to adopt, avoid, etc. In simple terms, it’s a website we use internally to discover, discuss and recommend tech. What made this project the most interesting one, is being able to witness and participate in the discovery process. We researched why the previous tool failed, what is the purpose of the new tool, and how it’s going to be used. The knowledge and skills I gained from this process, I feel, are hard to come by as a student.
What skills did you get to develop and practice during your internship?
I learned more about full stack web development, database management, and had my first encounters with agile project management as well as UI and UX. I also got to work with a wide variety of teams. Those experiences taught me how to handle working with remote team members, how to collaborate, and most importantly how to communicate (the answer is: often!). Too much communication, I found, is much better than too little.
Can you share your favorite DevFacto experience so far?
Best experience by far has been consistently uttering the same sentence, “Wow, I did not know/think of that”. Almost every day, I’m humbled by the experience and resourcefulness of the people that I work with.
University of Calgary co-op student Alexa Astorino
Alexa Astorino
Alexa is a software engineering student at the University of Calgary and currently completing her internship on DevFacto’s product development team. She discovered her passion for software after attending her first coding class at the university. Her interests go well beyond coding. She has impressive soccer skills and has been playing competitive soccer since she was 5 years old.
Why did you choose DevFacto for your co-op internship?
I chose DevFacto for my co-op internship because through the course of my job search, DevFacto was the only company I felt wanted to take me on not only because they valued my skills, but because they valued me as a person. I had the pleasure of interviewing with David (DevFacto’s CTO) and Zana (Talent Specialist), and I remember feeling very excited that they believed in what I could do, especially as a student, right off the bat. Something that really stood out to me was their desire to find someone that fit with DevFacto’s culture and team, so this was another deciding factor for me.
What kinds of projects have you worked on at DevFacto?
So far at DevFacto, my time has been spent on team Sparrow [Sparrow is an employee engagement platform and Devfacto’s flagship product]. I have been working on improving and adding brand new features to our Administration Portal. This includes contributions to the User Interface, Analytics, User Management and Post Management. We have a big release coming soon that we are all very excited about. Having my teammates by my side has really made working on Sparrow that much better.
What skills did you get to develop and practice during your internship?
In only 4 months here, I’ve developed so many new skills and improved upon existing ones as well. On the technical side, I have learned 4 completely new coding languages and become familiar with new database services. Additionally, I’ve been able to improve my time management and organization skills as I’ve gotten used to the concept of sprints. I’ve also improved my communication and teamwork skills significantly by constantly asking questions, which was very nerve racking in the beginning, and tackling daily problems or bugs with my coworkers.
Can you share your favorite DevFacto experience so far?
My favourite experience so far has been QualConf 2019 and the Summer Party. QualConf [DevFacto’s internal semiannual conference] allowed me to leave with new ideas regarding UX thanks to Figma 101 workshop, important knowledge of security from Web App Security Basics, and an understanding of personal branding. It was really fun and exciting not only to meet and get to know so many people across all of our regions, but also to learn from them during workshops and talks. I was able to bond with people I always hear about in the office and learn about their experiences at DevFacto. It was also a great chance to catch up with the Edmonton interns.
Co-op students Ben Ripka, Anas Mohamed and Jack Xia at a ski trip with fellow DevFactonians
Jack Xia
Jack is studying a Computing Science at the UofA and currently completing his internship at DevFacto. He’s a huge Pink Floyd fan.
Why did you choose DevFacto for your co-op internship?
The culture. DevFacto values people most.
What has been the most interesting project that you have worked on so far?
It was definitely a live auction portal. What makes it different from other projects is that it’s a real-time application, which means that users get real time and up-to-date notifications every time the state of an auction changes. My role involved developing new features for the site.
What skills did you get to develop and practice during your internship?
I gained considerable experience in full stack development – I developed for front-end and back-end and deployed apps to the server. In addition to the hard skills, I also learned how to effectively communicate with other developers and project managers and how to resolve problems.
What has been your best experience at DevFacto so far?
My favorite thing is that I can always get mentorship from experienced developers. Curtis has helped me all along this internship.
Co-op student Zach Drever at 2019 QualityConf
Benjamin Ripka
Ben is a Computer Engineering student at the UofA. Whatever free time he’s got, he spends it outdoors hiking, biking and snowboarding.
Why did you choose DevFacto for your co-op internship?
Consulting seemed to me as one of the best ways to get hands-on experience in the software development industry. I figured it would provide contextual examples of how software systems are created, used and maintained in businesses. Specifically, I decided on DevFacto because the people seemed fantastic and I thought the company culture would be a fit for me. I was right.
What has been the most interesting project that you have worked on so far?
My most significant project during this internship has been an end-to-end testing system I designed and developed for a webapp used by thousands of people every day. Our client has an in-house QA team that performs frequent manual regression testing to make sure all the features are up and running. This gets quite costly, and so they hired my team to automate the process.
I had a lot of autonomy on this project which lead to a massive increase in both my confidence and understanding of software systems. Through the process I also gained many new skills such as C#, .NET Core, NUnit, Selenium, React and Specflow.
What skills did you get to develop and practice during your internship?
First and foremost, I’ve built a set of skills required to work with cross-disciplinary teams. This includes skills like version control (git), sprint planning, demos, and general communication. Second, I’ve picked up more technical skills with C#, Javascript, .NET, React, etc. than I could have ever hoped for!
What has been your best experience at DevFacto so far?
My best experience at DevFacto would have to be the Beer O’Clocks after work on Fridays. It’s when all of DevFacto (or most) get together in the lounge for some drinks and snacks to hangout and play games after a full weeks’ work. It is the perfect environment to get to know everyone and talk about everything from the weekend plans, to passions, to career goals, etc. I’ll never forget the feeling of such a lively bunch all jammed into the kitchen!