This summer we had a new addition to the team as Ben joined our Internship programme… not all our Amazon deliveries come with a smile like this one!
Ben joined the team at Swarm for a Summer Internship in Software Development and spent 3 months building on the skills he had learnt during his first 3 years at Glasgow University. He recently set aside some time to tell us about his experience…
With the start of June came the beginning of my internship as a developer at SwarmOnline. Having never worked in the industry before I was intrigued to see how well the last 3 years of my degree had prepared me for the next 11 weeks.
The first thing you notice at Swarm is the welcoming atmosphere, within a week I felt as if I’d been working there all year. Of course there are a few features that make settling in that little bit easier such as; regular nights out with the team, a fully stocked bar (which is an essential feature of both the Glasgow and Edinburgh offices), the relaxed atmosphere and, crucially, the high-tech coffee machine which allowed me to fuel myself with many a “Damn Long” during my time at Swarm! All of this together with the support of the team, helping and provide pointers really enabled me to fit in quickly.
Despite what may seem apparent from the photos… I actually spent most of my time learning loads about software development, trying out new technologies and practicing my coding skills!
Something that makes Swarm unique is the diversity of projects they undertake. For me, this provided the invaluable experience of being able to learn how lots of new systems and technologies work as well as carry out tasks which allowed me to put my learnings into practice.
I really valued the opportunity to work with clients on support and features for existing projects as well as working on my own projects too, these ranged from learning to create Alexa skills to developing an app which could detect text in an image and translate it. I particularly enjoyed this task as not only did I learn a lot about using React Native and AWS, I was also able to discover a lot about the process of creating an app from start to finish and how important it is to research and plan a project. Despite the many frustrations and walls I ran into, nothing beats the feeling of making something that works as intended!
Looking back over my time at Swarm as I start my fourth and final year at university I am really grateful for the experience and look forward to applying the skills and experience I have gained, not only to projects at uni but also after I graduate and pursue a career in software development. Finally, and most importantly, I can only hope that my truly fantastic taste in music (subject of mild controversy) will be carried on in my absence at Swarm through their Sonos system… #LongLiveABBA
