“Prioritising tasks is an important skill for a software developer.”
Who? Antonia – computer science student at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. Works as a Backend Developer at Bitwise alongside her studies.
Experiences from my summer job
I first got a brief look at Bitwise early on in my studies, at BitHack 2019. A few years later, it was time to take a bigger step into the job market. I'd been left with a good enough impression that this was a place I could apply to. It wasn't the only one on my list, of course, and I didn't get in on my first attempt, but this time I did.
I tend to keep my expectations low. A “let's see how it goes” attitude has often made it easier to adjust to working life. Of course, my earlier experience of Bitwise had already given me some expectations – at least that it would be a place with skilled people. Now, after Bootcamp, that view hasn't changed either. I've been happy with my choice, and I believe I'll stay that way.
Prioritisation is an important skill for a software developer
Over the summer, I worked on the sports analytics platform Wisehockey, mainly on backend development using ASP.NET. I also developed testing software for the project. Now and then I dug into other, smaller parts of the project as well, but most of the time I stayed in the good old familiar world of C#.
The project itself used a lot of cloud technologies. I hadn't really explored them in my own projects or at school yet, so even though some of the practices were already familiar, there was a lot to learn over the summer. I also went much deeper into software testing than ever before, which often proved useful.
Talking things through with my teammates, both while getting up to speed and while actually wrangling the code, has been extremely helpful – especially when my own thinking gets stuck. It has also made getting to grips with things much quicker. I also found the actual mentoring, as separate conversations, interesting, and it helped broaden my own view of the industry.
Looking back on the whole summer, what stuck with me most were perhaps the small things, like the importance of well-executed software testing, but also prioritisation. I often found myself in situations where I could – and had to – choose what was worth doing and what wasn't necessarily. Before this project, I'd never really needed to think about prioritisation.
With autumn here, it's time to head back to school, but I'll keep working at Bitwise alongside my studies. As things look now, and if the opportunity is there, I intend to carry on after I graduate too. Bootcamp met and exceeded my expectations, and I've found the atmosphere pleasant outside of coding as well.