Intern guys is an internship exclusive platform that is reinventing and streamlining the internship cycle by connecting talent with top-tier startups

Intern Guys

*Preference management is an integral part of a great notification infrastructure, which makes it a very important piece of the puzzle here at Courier. This also means that there was a lot of learning and experience-building opportunity for the intern on the project, Denis Tatar. Denis’ internship was only a few months long, but he was able to make an enormous impact as the product manager for Courier’s Preferences feature. We wanted to learn more about Denis’ experience, so we asked if he’d be willing to work on a write-up for us. Then what he came up with was so good, that we thought it would be a good idea to share it with all of you! This post will cover Denis’ workflow from planning to execution around the Preferences project as well as his experience working with the Courier team specifically. We’ll let Denis take it from here! What was the problem? The problem we experienced at Courier was that we’d offer Preferences (V3) to our customers, but the entire product feature’s strategy wasn’t fully fleshed out. I believe that V3 was a great stepping stone for V4, but fundamentally had flaws in certain parts of its strategy. Allowing only global opt-in/out is an example of this. Another problem was that V3 didn’t gain much traction, which I believe points back to the lack of a fully thought-out strategy. In May, Preferences (V3) would only allow users to opt-in and out of their preferences of choice globally. V3 of Preferences only allowed our customers (and their customers) to opt-in/out of notifications, and customers globally could also decide if certain notifications were required or not. V3 helped give our customers the ability to start playing around with the idea of having preferences. However, globally opt/in out is a problem because it constrains end users’ notifications options. It was either all or nothing, no in-between. Similar in theory to the Pokemon saying, “Catch one, catch them all.” A problem with this, though, is inbox flooding. Global opt-in would allow for the concept of the end users’ inboxes becoming flooded with every product notification which is problematic because it can easily drive users away from your product. Global opt-in/out was quickly resolved by allowing users to select what content they wanted to be notified of and the channels they’d prefer. This overall trend in the market is used by thousands of companies (B2B and B2C products), especially in the technology space. Visibility became a serious issue with V3. End users never had the option to select what type of content and channel they wanted. Users would be asked if they were interested in receiving notifications in general. Not offering options is problematic as it constrains visibility on what you’ll receive through notifications. End users also don’t like surprises when it comes to product notifications. Having clarity is key because it enables end users to have control over their notifications. With V4, we solved the visibility problem, which was the main “fail” from V3. Our customers and their end users now had the ability to control the content they received and the channels they would prefer. V4 was a good way to strategically notify end users. Plan There were three phases we followed as a team when building Preferences. In phase one, I spent a decent amount of time looking at what is currently available in the market in terms of preference centers. I would constantly ask myself the following two questions: Research “How does [insert company name] manage notifications? What does their preference center look like?” These questions were key. They helped me dive into necessary research which helped me pick up on many important market trends. Out of all the trends found though, there was one that stood out the most. Channel & content selection through a toggle/grid style layout for preference centers is a must-have. This trend became the backbone to our summer project. It was important to offer users preference options. Trend: During this phase, I read many case studies. I was surprised to see how many existed on this topic. Each one helped enlighten me with solutions for the problem we were tackling. I learned through other people’s mistakes, absorbing valuable lessons. Talking to customers was extremely helpful in this phase. I was able to hop on numerous calls with our customers and hear their perspectives on this problem. I would ask questions and show examples of what we had in mind for a solution. This helped tailor a POC. The better we understand our customers’ perspectives, the easier it is to start designing something that they would use. I really enjoyed this phase. Watching research become an actual POC was incredible, and so fun. We took all the feedback I had gathered, then created several iterations of designs. Designing a POC Once we created a POC, it was essential to go back to our customers and ensure that it was something they envisioned for Preferences. Our customers were also lovely people to work with, always there to provide their much-needed feedback. Often, I would have a decent amount of brainstorming sessions with Ian. We’d look at our research and what our customers had to say, and combine these sources into a POC. It was an insightful process to be a part of. This phase lasted several weeks until we finally landed on a POC that satisfied all of the customers we had spoken to since May 2022. Once we had a POC and fully completed designs, we began building our product feature. This phase taught me two vital lessons… Building an MVP Being organized is extremely important. and... As a product manager, you need to stay one week ahead of your team. While working at Courier and delegating tasks, I noticed that the more organized you were, the easier it was to work with others. My organizational skills would impact how clearly our designers and engineers understood our goals and individually delegated tasks. The more organized we were, the faster and more efficient we worked. Outlining the tasks our team needed to complete, and vocalizing why these tasks were necessary helped a lot. It brought clarity to everyone, including myself. The second lesson here was given to me by our CEO, Troy. He taught me how important it was to think about the current and following week. Troy brought this up because, as a product manager, you want to keep your team informed on what projects and tasks are in the pipeline.. A product manager that isn’t in this mindset can quickly become a hindrance to their team. Taking on this mindset brought clarity and made me less stressed about our project. I would spend time planning each week, and estimating where the team should be at the end of each week (cycle). These two lessons helped when we were building an MVP. We progressed through each week as a team, with each week’s tasks outlined, along with the weekly goals we needed to achieve. Working with the team at Courier was amazing, everyone was understanding and absolutely brilliant. What I loved the most was that everyone had an opinion. Engineers and designers would ask if specific tasks were priorities before building them, which allowed us to build the MVP and get it up and running quickly. These questions helped guide priorities and decision-making. Execution: What I did exactly Throughout this internship, every day was different. My week would involve speaking to customers, delegating tasks to our engineers and designers, and taking time to think ahead, two to three weeks ahead of the current week. I also worked closely with both engineers and designers, ensuring great synergy between both teams. There were four core responsibilities that I embodied throughout my product manager internship at Courier: Being the internal expert on what the market (customers & prospects) want within my realm of focus. Being the internal expert on what my product feature already provides (and thus the delta to the above core responsibility). The ability to prioritize the path that gets Courier from our current state to our desired state. The ability to educate the rest of the company on the current product, the product being built, and our ultimate product vision so that everyone can be on the same page without being experts. As the glue that ensures the team is working together on the right thing for the right reasons, their success is ultimately limited by my effectiveness in one and two. I cannot accurately educate teammates on what I don’t profoundly understand myself. Troy was a fantastic mentor throughout my entire time at Courier. He brought these four core responsibilities to my attention, which became an integral part of my internship. What resonated with me the most was being the glue between all teams. At first, I looked at this concept and was intimidated by it. But, I had a blast easing myself into becoming this glue-like figure between teams. It definitely wasn’t something easy to pull off, but I enjoyed the challenge. I managed to make a lot of great friends along the way too! What trade-offs did I experience? There were many trade-offs throughout my entire internship. The main ones I experienced were related to the following concept “make it work -> make it good -> make it fast,” which I often heard throughout my internship. There were many times when small features that could make our UI/UX stand out would actually slow down the team. Trade-offs like these were necessary. They had me questioning whether we focus on the nitty-gritty details, or do we put the feature aside and focus on making a product that functions and gets the job done? The latter part of that question was often chosen as our strategy. It’s tough to make these calls because you know the team can develop an outstanding product build with phenomenal UI/UX components, but our build must accomplish what it’s meant to do in the first place. The main goal was to release our MVP, ensure we have customer feedback, improve any core features, and then focus on minor priorities that affect the UI/UX of this product. What was it like working with the team? I had a blast working with the Lifecycle team on Preferences. Everyone was so kind, and offered fantastic feedback. I’ve mentioned this numerous times around the office, and on calls with coworkers. Working at Courier didn’t feel like work; it felt like I was working on a side project with close friends. I genuinely think this is why I was able to produce the work I did at Courier, because of the environment. Courier is easy-going, extremely friendly, and results-driven. Another thing I really loved about the team was that they always thought of me. If there were tasks that engineers or designers would do that were considered a ‘norm’ for them, they’d ask me if I’d like to give it a shot to see what it’s like. I have three examples of this. When designing a specific tooltip for a part of the Preferences project, Ian (Senior Designer) during one of our calls, asked if I wanted a shot at designing a tooltip. This involved working with Frames in Figma, a concept I never worked with. I really enjoyed creating that tooltip. It made me feel included. Every week the team would have our team Lifecycle planning meetings. We’d speak about tickets, and write them up. It was early on in my internship when Suhas (Senior Engineer) asked me if I wanted to try writing up several tickets on Linear. I was aware that this was something most PMs would normally do, but I had a lot of respect for Suhas for bringing this up, and was willing to teach me how to properly create tickets in Linear. Once the team had something solidified for Preferences, I began to ask around internally to learn if there were any companies that would be interested in hearing about my project. Nathan (Account Executive), reached out to me to let me know about a customer interested in this product feature. Nathan encouraged me a TON when it came to communicating with this customer. I was able to step outside of my comfort zone because of Nathan’s encouragement. I’ve never gotten to speak to a customer before in any of my previous internship experiences, and I learned a lot about customers and the way they perceive Courier. Note that these are just three examples of the many opportunities like this throughout my internship. I do want to give a big shoutout to Ian, Suhas, and Nathan. I appreciate you guys giving me opportunities to learn and grow, it means the world to me. How did I work with designers? I enjoyed working with Ian (Senior Designer). We’d have impromptu meetings through Slack’s ‘Huddle’ feature, (which was internally renamed to because of a typo I once made that stuck). These meetings were really great for brainstorming and product design. Sometimes, Ian and I would have calls later at night because it was easier to come up with more creative ideas.. We’d have one to two-hour sessions, and we’d come up with some really awesome UI/UX for Preferences. This is something I’ll never forget. ‘Huggle’ When working with Ian, I would try to make it as easy as possible. I would create a to-do list through Google docs or Slack, so both Ian and I would be aware of what needed to be completed every week. During our calls, Ian and I would also talk about a lot of different topics not always directly related to work, which was great. This really helped build our friendship, making it so much easier to collaborate and come up with a clean UI/UX for Preferences. I often do a decent amount of product design outside of work hours, and Ian would always give me phenomenal advice on product design and on Figma! How did I work with engineers? I briefly touched on this, but when working with engineers, I would help create tickets, and organize what each week would look like. I helped our engineers whenever they were confused about anything related to Preferences and would explain how I came up with specific names, why Ian and I would design certain parts of our product and the goals behind these designs. Many of these answers came from my extensive research process with customers that were interested in Preferences. While working with engineers, I learned a lot about how to properly break down tickets (eipcs) within Linear. I thought I had a firm grasp before working at Courier, but I learned a lot more after working with the Lifecycle team. The key to breaking down tickets is to be able to think about every single detail alongside engineers. Being in a small group while doing this was super important because each individual helped bring up a very important perspective on how to break down tickets. During my internship, Seth (Chief Technology Officer), Suhas (Senior Software Engineer), and Christian (Software Engineer) encouraged me to speak to the Developer Experience team at Courier and show them our project. The main goal behind this was to test to see if the UI/UX of Preferences was intuitive if the design made sense, and if the Developer Experience team understood the goal behind this product feature. I prepared a slide deck explaining our project in its entirety. This was a great experience because it helped me prepare for how to Giving insightful presentations about products and . Speaking to folks internally helped me practice and refine this skill, as well. sell Preferences to our customers. “selling” your product to customers is such an important and overlooked skill for product managers How did I solve the problem? Before V4 Preferences, customers weren’t given the option of choosing what content they’d like to hear about, and how they’d like to hear about it. With V4 Preferences, users now can voice their opinions on both of these matters. This new product feature makes it possible for customers to choose what they like, and want to hear about. Specifically through their channels preference. Gone are the days of inbox cluttering and customers becoming aggravated with the number of notifications they receive. Preferences minimize the frustration that end users experience with their notifications. Want to apply for a role at Courier? Check out . To check out what Denis helped build in action, request a demo and ask to see the Preferences feature. our careers page here

I Took Ownership of a Major Product Feature as a PM Intern

Tomé posesión de una característica importante del producto como pasante de PM

J'ai pris possession d'une caractéristique majeure du produit en tant que stagiaire PM

मैंने पीएम इंटर्न के रूप में एक प्रमुख उत्पाद सुविधा का स्वामित्व लिया

PMインターンとして主要な製品機能の所有権を取得しました

Assumi a propriedade de um recurso importante do produto como estagiário de PM

Tôi đã có quyền sở hữu Tính năng sản phẩm chính với tư cách là Thực tập sinh PM

作为 PM 实习生，我获得了一个主要产品功能的所有权

Photo courtesy of Tesla What could be more uplifting and exciting than watching rising souls pursue their dream career?! , the famous electric car company headquartered in Fremont, CA, may be an example of where this is taking place. They currently hire interns from universities all around the country throughout the year. But they do have high standards! Tesla In order to find out more about what they are looking for in a new intern, I was able to speak directly with three current interns about their college experiences and what they think allowed them to become an intern at Tesla. These three interns are Jennifer, Chad, and Dillon. Jennifer Jennifer is a mechanical engineering student at the University of North Dakota, who currently interns in the manufacturing side at Tesla. This is already her second , after interning at Rockwell Automation. internship Jennifer explained that she received both of her internships through the national Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conference. SWE is a large gathering for female engineering students, and a great way for them to connect with both the industry and alumni through professional development workshops, networking opportunities, and outreaching activities. During this conference, Jennifer was able to speak with recruiters face to face about her individual experience. Since Tesla did not come to her campus for recruiting, she felt this opportunity was more effective than submitting her resume online. When she applied for her first internship she was only a college freshmen without much hands-on experience. Because of this she recommended to start with a lower ranking company that was easier to receive an internship at, and build strong experience there. This first location was Rockwell, where she took part in many continuous improvement projects and automations, which were skills Tesla is looking for. I asked Jennifer how getting into this first internship itself was possible without the experience in her desired field. She told me that being very involved in campus activities was a big plus for her. She is an officer in SWE, which gives her many opportunities to organize events and outreach to other student organizations. All these she can talk at her interviews. Overall, Jennifer explained that she made sure to research what Tesla was looking for in an intern. Two of these things were automation and PLC programming, so she focused on improving these skills before applying. Jennifer shared that she “made sure to hit the bullet points,” of what they were looking for as well as be involved in her school and keep a good GPA. “Just add up the little things and you stand out,” she shared. Chad and Dillon Chad and Dillon are both engineering students of Georgia Tech. They are friends at school, and after learning that they were both accepted to be interns at Tesla, they decided to drive from Atlanta to California together. These two energetic guys now bike to work almost everyday. Currently, they both work in the re-manufacturing department at Tesla. Chad is major in Electrical Engineering, and he will be a junior this upcoming year. He mentioned two things that were important in getting approved for an internship at Tesla: previous experiences and involvement in student organizations. Chad expressed that it is very important to focus more on career related clubs in college. “You want to narrow [it] down to what you really want to do,” he said. “One of the biggest things is that I am part of the electric racing team at Georgia Tech, where we built an electric car 95% from ground up in the shop,” Chad said, “…and that probably lead to my first internship at Crown Castle after my freshman year.” Chad also has a very strong technical background. He learned Python in high school, and this helped him substantially in getting his first internship at Crown Castle, which builds telecommunication infrastructure. Right after his internship during his first summer in college, he began an internship at Georgia Tech Research Institute, where he applied a large amount of his knowledge of python, and worked on digital signal processing (DSP). Chad suggested that companies are looking at extracurricular activities when choosing interns. So at school he is the Lead Circuits Engineer at the Hytech racing team, which is also how he became aware of the opportunity at Tesla. A Tesla recruiting member met with all the project teams at Georgia Tech, which included his HyTech racing team, GT motorsports team, and more. After he met with the recruiters, he went through the hiring process of two interviews. He shared that the interviews were mostly regarding the student’s behavior but they also provided some technical challenges. According to his observation, he rarely saw any intern who didn’t have any work experience. “You really need to push your own experience as much as you can,” he suggested. Dillon is a Mechanical Engineer at Georgia Tech, in his third year by now. He also had two internships before starting at Tesla. His work at Tesla focus on mechanical design, automation, and testing. He said a huge factor of getting an internship at Tesla is being able to “show that you can take and apply knowledge very quickly.” Dillon also expressed that rather than stressing a particular skill set, or very strong technical background, a growth mindset is what will set a candidate apart. “I know a lot of people feel intimidated about applying to Tesla, oh you need to be this big bad engineer who has done a lot of this even in high school. I’d like to debunk that. I think it is a lot about the time and effort you put into things. I entered my university with only 18 credits, I know there are people who enter college with 80 credits but I have still gotten here now.” Prior to Tesla, Dillon had two internships, one was as an equipment engineer, which included a lot of validation of equipment. The second one focused more on machinery analysis, where he did a lot of vibration analysis. Both of these experiences are not directly related to what he does now at Tesla, but by demonstrating that he is able to learn new skills and apply them quickly he was able to gets the internship. I asked Dillon that among a strong GPA, extracurricular activities, technical background, or previous internship experiences, what is the most important to focus on to land the internship. Dillon said the most important thing is still a candidate’s mindset. However, besides the growth mindset, Tesla is also looking for people who really understand the reason behind any action. For example, during the interview for Tesla, a recruiter may ask what you did in your previous job and more importantly, if you really understand what you did, such as why you designed the system in a certain way. To sum up my findings in all three interviews, there are a few points that stood out about getting an internship at Tesla: Previous internships Extracurricular activities Having a Growth Mindset Being able to learn new skills and apply them fast A clear career direction A decent GPA Other than these, I found out that each intern had very good reading habits. Jennifer, while working long hours in Tesla, still read around one book each week. And Dillon said his interviewer suggested he read four books before his internship: The Toyota Way, SCRUM, Elon Musk’s biography, and Understanding Variation. He said reading helped him set his mindset for not just the internship, but for life in general.

What It Takes to Become an Intern at Tesla — Interview with Three Interns

241 Stories To Learn About Writing

93 Stories To Learn About Online Courses

I had the opportunity to interview Allison Sturges, the Head of Marketing at . Genies allow creators to design and create their own avatar ecosystem. An avatar ecosystem consists of avatars, fashion and collectibles, spaces and venues, and social experiences. Genies They are a web3 company, and its digital assets are NFTs minted on the Flow blockchain. Below is an edited transcript of the interview. To start, I love to hear about how you got started with Genies, what you were doing before, and what got you excited about this space. I'm part of the founding team at Genies. Currently, I’m the Head of Marketing. I've actually been with the company since I think my sophomore of junior year of college. I actually went to high school with Akash, our CEO. We didn't really know each other that well in high school. I heard through the grapevine that he was starting a company. At the time, it wasn't even called Genies. We were working on a different social consumer app. I ran into Akash at our local gym. So I walked up to him and was like, "Hey, would love to work for you as an intern this summer. Do you have any open roles available?" And he put me through a full resume interview process. They told me they were interviewing hundreds of people, but I swear I was probably the only one they were interviewing. Over the years, we worked on a couple of different social apps. Some of them were around photo sharing, video sharing, even got into the chatbot space for a bit. And then we landed on the avatar space around 2016. Can you talk more about what led to the transition of the work from the previous company into Genies? What was it that you saw with the avatar systems and the tools that made you guys think, "Ok this might be it"? We've always been obsessed with the next form of communication or social interaction in digital form. We were working on different social consumer apps at the time. We pivoted a few different times as we were iterating, failed fast, and kept iterating and learning from that. Over the years, that provided us a lot of learnings to get us to where we are today. At the time, the only social avatar was Bitmoji and people used to say we were the better Bitmoji. We got into the avatar space around 2016. At the time, the only social avatar was Bitmoji, and people used to say we were the better Bitmoji. Other than that, people knew avatars from a gaming lends, like Sims back in the day but there wasn’t many that were used as a kind of social communication. We saw avatars as a tool for communication and really a tool for self-expression. Our philosophy behind avatars is that it can be a representation of your truest, most authentic self, kind of like your inner emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that maybe you don't feel comfortable expression in the physical world. As a result, we spent a good amount of time perfecting how our avatars look and I believe we have the best-looking avatar on the market. Can you elaborate more on the avatar space for people like myself that's aren't familiar with it? There's definitely a lot of players out there that are looking towards the avatar space or trying to build an avatar world. You have companies like Zepetto, or you could even say Roblox, where that is a form of self-expression. You're able to create that identity layer and use that within those kind of gaming type experiences. With Genies, we're focused on the aesthetics of the avatars. We've really studied Gen Z to understand what they care about, how they want to express themselves, and what kind of tools they might want to use to create that kind of identity. With the Genies Studio app, that is our first experience in providing the ability for people to create their own avatars, but then also providing tools that allow them to customize and create whatever they want in our ecosystem. Fashion is really interesting when you look at Gen Z and culture. They grew up on the internet. They have access to everything. They want to be unique and be able to stand out. Fashion is really interesting when you look at Gen Z and culture. They grew up on the internet. They have access to everything. They want to be unique and be able to stand out. And so fashion has been a form of that self-expression that you see in the physical world. In our tool, we let creators design their own patterns or textures to use on their assets. Eventually, creators will be able to upload their own patterns and creations. We even have kind of like cropping or stitching type tools where you could take this shirt here and take the sleeves off and combine it with another shirt. And creators will be able to sell, trade, or thrift them within our ecosystem. Can you walk us through how the technology works? We're an avatar tools company. In the app currently, you're able to design and create your own avatar. We'll be rolling out more customizations where you can change your body type, create your own makeup, and even tattoos. In the coming months, we'll be rolling out more tools that will allow you to create your own looks, spaces, and experiences. And then once we roll out the developer kit, you'll be able to create your own avatar ecosystem as well. What kind of features do the creators want in an avatar tools company? Right now, we have a big focus on the uniqueness and customization of the avatar itself as well as creating and designing your own fashion. When we rolled out our limited beta, that was the kind of feedback we were getting from our users. We're even exploring things where the avatar doesn't necessarily have to be human. It can be an animal or it can be a teacup with floating arms. These things get really playful and expressive and allow people to innovate on that identity. And as we look towards the developer community and the experience side of things, the tools will be more around how you can have your avatar interact with others around you. Maybe it would involve motion capture or embodiment. Or maybe take an object in the real world and turn it into a 3D object. Do you find that Gen Z are open to NFTs, or are they against it? I think there's kind of mixed feelings on NFTs. When NFTs got their boom, it was all around digital artwork. That and NBA Top Shot is really what accelerated the NFT space. And that is a great use case for what the power of NFTs can do. Digital artists have never had a way to monetize their digital artwork and NFTs provided a way for them to do so the same way that physical artists have been able to. I would say over the next year or two, people will start to be more educated on the power of NFTs. But I think there's still a lot of work to do around the branding of the technology. For us, we really view NFTs as a great empowerment tool for creators. We're seeing creators leave platforms like Instagram because they're not getting paid for their creations. They don't own them. With a platform like ours and us announcing full ownership, all of our creators and users have that full ownership, that full access. For us, we really view NFTs as a great empowerment tool for creators. We're seeing creators leave platforms like Instagram because they're not getting paid for their creations. In your opinion, what makes someone feel like they have true ownership? It's the ability to trade it, to control it, sell it, or thrift it. It's being able to exchange that asset. It's also about attributing it back to the original owner. I can fully create an outfit or shirt in the Genies ecosystem. Now when I sell that to you, it's always going to be attributed back to me as that original owner and creator. Over time, maybe that asset gets traded to someone else. So monetarily, that attribution gives you the split in the future as well. Lastly, what do you envision where Genies the company will be in five years? In five years, assuming all goes well and we continue to stay on track, we definitely envision hundreds, thousands of creators, artists, and developers being able to build their own avatar ecosystems that the mainstream users adopt. It starts to get really exciting when you think about how Apple first rolled out the app store and now they have millions of apps on the app store. That's what we're definitely excited about and hope to see in the future. To watch the full interview, check out the Hello Player One Podcast . here

The Future of Avatars: Allison Sturges of Genies Avatar Ecosystem Shares Insights

Howdy Hackers! I’m Sergei Golitsyn, and I’m the Senior Software Engineer at Covalent Inc. I’ve been nominated for the categories below, and if you've enjoyed anything I've written this year, please take some time to vote for me. : HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- DESIGN URL : . HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE URL As a writer in tech, I believe that Java + C# + Unity is the most exciting technology of the present because you can change reality with it. Learn more about my views on  Software Architecture and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below. What's your current role and what do you like about it? Now, I'm a Senior Software Engineer, and I make games. This is a dream job. After all, I create worlds that are used by hundreds of thousands of players. Every day I come across challenges that make me a puzzle. How can you not like it? How did you get into Programming? Actually, it happened by accident. After graduation, I got a job in a large energy company. I was engaged in installing software for all sorts of aunts and uncles. You know how it happens in a large company, only admins have installation rights, so I was one of them. I did not work with iron. My department was all about software =) After a month or maybe two, I started doing my daily tasks in a couple of hours. A little later, it came to the point that I could do everything that was planned for the day in half an hour or an hour. I began to read books, various fiction, psychology, and everything that caught my eye. Later, when I was already feeling bad about seeing the pages, I started watching movies and TV shows. Yes, I did it at work because there is nothing more boring than sitting around doing nothing. After the series and films ended or I felt terrible about them, I remembered that I had not played for a long time. I disappeared for a couple of months in games =) At that moment, a guy who programmed in PHP got a job in our department. I still remember his burning look, and I wanted one too. Every day, he actively and enthusiastically did something, discussed some incomprehensible databases with colleagues from neighboring departments, actively printed something, and was happy. I thought that's what I wanted. And he started googling. What did I google? Like "how to become a programmer? "and "Learn a programming language." Haha, this is funny. But due to these ridiculous requests, the javaRush site caught my eye. This is not an advertisement of the site at all, it just flew out to me, and I decided to play it. Yes, play. Education is built in the form of a game. So, I disappeared from life for a couple of months. I went through the levels and read the additional materials given after each lesson. Unfortunately, 10 levels later, the free access ended, and you had to pay. I found out that closer to the new year, there will be a sale. The dilemma was a turning point. Finally, close the credit card I foolishly took and waste all the money or get into debt again and buy the course. Yes, I freaked out and again spent all the money from the credit card and purchased the course. To better understand what it cost me, in addition to the monthly payment, I had to pay a percentage of about 2 thousand rubles every month, and my salary was about 20 thousand. Apparently, I could close the credit card again after a couple of years =) I bought this course and probably fell out of life completely for 8-12 months. Every second I thought about how to solve the problem, how to do better, and how to move to the next level. After that, I thought that I could try to find a job as a developer and prepare a resume. There were only 2 vacancies for Java developers in the city. One was for experienced guys, and they were looking for an intern/junior in the second vacancy. I wrote, and they answered me. I was surprised. After talking on the phone, I was given a test task. For this assignment, I had to read Knuth and get a deeper understanding of algorithms and data structures. Then there was a face-to-face interview, and I passed. I was offered an offer 20-30 percent below my salary. But I understood that I would not try now - I would never try. And so, I became a developer. How did you get into writing about Programming? At some point, I decided to just try to share my knowledge. As it turned out, I didn’t know anything, but writing the first article helped me understand the topic even deeper. Writing each article is not only giving knowledge but consolidating it, which is also helpful for me. I would like to read many of the articles I wrote at the beginning of my journey. Maybe I can help someone? I rejoice like a child every view and like =) What's your earliest memory of you learning to code? Of course, it's Hello World. I could not believe my eyes at all that my application could display a phrase on the screen. Then I changed the text, and it worked again. I was in seventh heaven with happiness. After some time, I got acquainted with REST, and I remember how I sent the first request and received the first response. It's unforgettable. When Elon Musk achieves his dream of getting us to Mars, what technology do you think would be important on Mars and why? Cool question. I think that obtaining oxygen and maintaining a normal temperature will be necessary in the first place. I think we can not do without artificial intelligence, which will control the level of oxygen and temperature. I would very much like to participate in Ilon's project. What's a programming language that you would build EVERYTHING and ANYTHING in and why? I will be a bore and say that there is no such language. A language is a tool. And we must select each tool for a specific task. I think there is no "Swiss knife" in the programming world. What's something you think Software developers do not do enough of? I think developers have recently not paid attention to their code's quality and performance. With the advent of clouds and high-performance servers, more and more developers don't know much about the code they write. It becomes unsupported, unscalable, and slow, but this is all compensated by the clouds and a few microservices. What is your least favorite thing about programming? There is probably nothing I don't like about programming. Sometimes I get frustrated with not planning carefully or writing lower-quality code because I'm running out of time. What’s a technology you’re currently learning or excited to learn? Oh, now I'm learning c# + Unity. This is magic for me, and I'm obsessed with it and try to devote every free minute to it. Creating games with Unity has opened up a new world for the Java backend developer. What’s your favorite Programming story of all-time on HackerNoon? An unexpected question. I've never ranked articles by popularity, so I can't answer that question. But I've definitely read a lot of fantastic articles on HackerNoon. Time travel 10 years into the past or 10 years into the future? What does technology look like? Give reasons for your answer. 10 years ago, technology was just getting infected, and there were no productive servers. The developers were meticulous about the little things. But it will be interesting to look at 10 years ahead. I think that artificial intelligence will prevail. Algorithms for some programs will develop independently. I think everyone will also need professionals to create and invent new technologies, and the current opportunities will only help them. And of course teleport and flying cars. About HackerNoon’s 2022 Noonie Awards The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to , nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today. check out our award categories The 2022 Noonies are sponsored by: , and . Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees. BingX .tech domains

Intern Guys

internguys.com

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

INTERN GUYS

EVERGREEN INDEX #5712

Intern Guys WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!

Intern Guys

internguys.com

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

INTERN GUYS

EVERGREEN INDEX #5712

RELATED COMPANIESRANK

STORIES ABOUT INTERN GUYS

Intern Guys WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!