From intern to young professional. Bogdan Luca's story

POV: College is halfway over, and between pretending to understand dynamic systems and going out with your friends, you have this unsettling feeling that it’s about time to look for a company where you could do your mandatory internship.?

My name is Luca. I’m a 22-year-old Software Developer and Scrum Master at Yonder, and that was my situation 3 years ago, as a UBB Computer Science student. The usual internship process consists of filling out a form, going through a couple of tests and interviews, and hopefully getting a spot at the grown-ups table, while becoming more and more nervous every time your benevolent colleagues tell you that they have already been accepted. I was somewhat hoping that my previous work experience was going to fast-forward everything, but flipping burgers and boiling lobsters as part of Work&Travel doesn’t impress IT recruiters as much as you’d expect.?

Something just clicked

About a month into the process, I received 3 similar offers in terms of tech stack and benefits. All in the same week. I won’t go into the whole thinking process behind it, as I’m not sure if the decisive factor was the interview, the recruitment process as a whole or the prospects. Simply put, something just clicked with Yonder, and it all seemed smooth and natural, which made me believe that choosing this internship program would lead to great work experience.?

After 2 weeks of technical and process-related workshops, we were each assigned to a different team. Following a brief but instructive experience with a small, internal web application, I was re-assigned to a much more complex project, which I am still currently working on today. Given that the project was at that time twice my age (yes, 40 years old, and still going strong, with a mix of new and old technologies) and it is in the medical software field, you can easily guess that I was overwhelmed, and often got stuck waist-deep in debugging and ineffective ‘stackoverflowing’.?

The opportunity to continue

Despite this, step by step, guided by a very helpful mentor, I started getting a gist of it and became more comfortable with both technical tasks as well as the meetings held with international clients. I was also building friendships and improving my table tennis game, so the internship fully delivered to my high expectations. Fortunately, with one week remaining, I was offered the opportunity to continue as an employee as soon as I finished the internship period.?

Seeing young people like Bogdan, eager to learn and develop themselves, assertive and open to feedback, willing to take on a challenge and deliver on it, we are not afraid to say that the future is in good hands. He is a great colleague, a nice combination of excellent humor and seriousness on getting the job done, says Marius Indrie - Delivery Lead and Bogdan's mentor.

(Now back to our story...) Full disclosure, when starting the program, I wasn’t necessarily willing to sacrifice my free time, and while I was no Richie Rich, my sponsors, I mean parents, weren’t putting pressure on me getting a job before graduating. However, the 2 months spent within the company gave me the certainty that I want to be part of Yonder for a long period of time, so I accepted on the spot. Of course, there was the extra incentive that my girlfriend also accepted an offer from her internship company, and I didn’t want to come up as a slacker, but it was mostly the first reason. ?

From intern to employee

Transitioning from intern to employee wasn’t a challenge, since I was already used to the project, process, and people. Indeed, I started to expect more from myself, and imposter syndrome kicked in a few times, but I heard that it’s not uncommon to feel that at a job where the only constant is that you always have more to learn. I began taking on more challenging tasks and dealing with a wider range of technologies, which was exciting and complicated at the same time.??

Fast-forward a year, I must admit that finishing college and working on a 6-hour schedule was quite the challenge. Late nights catching up with school projects, deadlines overlapping, and a graduation thesis started rather late would best sum up the workload. On the brighter side, I am thankful that I always found help and understanding from colleagues during exam periods, and I constantly felt like my well-being is taken into consideration. What’s more, looking back, the progress that I had during that year in terms of knowledge, skillset and confidence made it all worth it.?

Fast, but manageable development

And that has to be the thing that best describes my Yonder experience thus far: fast but manageable development. I already got the chance to conduct interviews, teach workshops for interns or grade their technical tests, and I find it quite remarkable that just 3 years ago I was on the other side of the process. None of this happened because I’m some kind of tech prodigy, far from that, but because I got help, tools, and later opportunities to apply what I’ve learned. Mentors, communities of practice and sharing of information really do make all the difference when it comes to progress, so it all happened organically. And it’s not just on the technical side. Since it was noticed quite early that I am passionate about management and leading people, I started getting tips and insights from Marius, my Delivery Manager, as well as other Team Leads, and their effort is already starting to pay dividends, as I get to apply what I’ve learned since I took on the Scrum Master role a year ago.?

Whether technical or business-related, your interests are definitely noticed and encouraged by the company, which is willing to put in the effort and resources for your improvement, as long as you are too. The help and push that I get in the process of becoming better, as well as the people that I get to interact with, are the main reasons for which I am a strong advertiser of Yonder, and already convinced friends to become my colleagues.

Interested in being the next one? Apply for our Java Internship or as a Mid/Senior Java Developer (and get a chance to work on the Pharma Project Bogdan mentions above.)