Q&A with Piotrek on his internship at Kiwee
Ksenia PimenovaReading Time: 3 minutes
Our two Developer Interns 2019 absolutely rocked! It was great to have them at Kiwee 🙂 And did they enjoy it too? You can find Piotrek's answers in an interview-style post below and Kamil's answers here.
1. Quick intro:
Hi, my name is Peter and I’m 22. I am currently studying Computer Science at Wrocław’s University of Science and Technology. Besides programming, I love snowboarding, playing the guitar, reading fantasy and sci-fi books as well as playing video games.
2. Why did you choose Kiwee for your internship?
I met Kiwee’s Team at job fair at Politechnika Wrocławska. Their stand stood out from others with loads of lively colors and custom graphics. After speaking to Krzysiek, Kiwee’s intern from the previous year, and getting to know about the company’s unique culture (pet friendly office and individual approach to every team member), I knew I wanted to apply to become Kiwee’s intern.
3. What was your work scope and set of tasks?
Tasks which I worked on revolved around the company's website. My main assignment was to implement multi-language features to company’s website. Moreover, I was implementing new designs of different pages and adding additional functionality to the website as well as testing new features for cross-browser and cross-device compatibility with LambdaTest.
4. What’s one thing you did not expect to see in Kiwee that positively surprised you?
What surprised me the most is the unique company culture, which is different from standard corporate culture. You can count on your teammates, who support you with your tasks. Moreover, you feel that the team shares a common goal. As the office is pet-friendly and the team size is small, it creates an atmosphere that helps one stay relaxed and feel important. Also tasks’ difficulty increased gradually, thus I could feel progress with each next sprint. Additionally, I really like the mentorship program at Kiwee, when you are assigned to an experienced developer, who helps you during the internship.
5. What was the biggest challenge you had to tackle during the internship?
There were many challenges along the way, some were technical ones (related to the technologies used on the project), others involved proper time-management and work planning in order to cooperate with teammates efficiently and finish the planned tasks within deadlines.
6. What are the biggest learnings you have after this experience?
During this internship I acquired the most most valuable skills, which cannot be acquired at university nor through an online course: real-life teamwork and proper organization of one’s work. I’ve also had a chance to work with the Scrum methodology, learn how to estimate tasks and how to properly update my team on my status. I’ve witnessed the whole cycle of software development and learnt how to properly use the GIT versioning system.
7. A LOL moment you will never forget?
There were a lot of moments that made me laugh, so picking just one is impossible. Pets at the office are a stress relief, because you cannot be sad when they are around 🙂 Also, there were occasions to chat with team members, especially during lunch, when we talked about various topics from “post-apo” genre, future technologies, philosophical subjects and more casual hobbies and interests, basically you cannot get bored at the office.
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8. What would you say to future Kiwee’s interns?
Being an intern at Kiwee is an amazing adventure that challenges your problem solving skills, gives you a chance to gain experience in valuable areas (work organization, communication skills, working with the Scrum methodology) and, most of all, lets you meet many talented people that are willing to share their knowledge.
