Yesterday, I concluded my internship program at hotels.ng and I can tell you it was one of the best 3 months of my life. Building products that have meaning, and that will be used by a lot of people is extremely exciting and the knowledge I gained was incredible.
I knew a little about programming before joining the internship; in fact, i got paid to develop websites for four different organizations(which i delivered *sigh). In my little mind i thought i could code, i thought i could proudly wear that hat as a “Rockstar Developer” (Little did i know that I was far from whom I thought I was) .
Starting the internship, I realized I knew close to nothing; I had to read a lot, watched lots of YouTube tutorials, bugged a lot of people, had lots of sleepless nights (nothing good ever comes easy); I did all these because I knew I had to be the very best I can be. hotels.ng gave me the environment to be whom I wanted to be; in effect, I had no Excuse to fail.
Working with a team in a production environment had to have been the best part, and I met awesome people(geniuses) that will one day build great stuff.
I can’t speak on the behalf of other interns, so I invited them to drop their comments, and you can ask us questions about the program.
I’m sorry? Where are you getting your information from?
It looks like you have some sort of personal grudge against the company. Care to share?
And, like @StephenAfamO, I was a part too. It was tough, yeah, but looking back I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Even if it is PR, who says they don’t have the right to do so? You’re welcome to run your own internship program and get people to talk about it. I would gladly apply.
How is the intern remuneration at hotels.ng?
Was it negotiable?
Is the pay same for graduates, undergraduates, and polytechnic guys?
By “Remuneration”, I also refer to work tool provisions eg. they gave you guys laptops/peripherals, paid cloud storage(dropbox) subscriptions for interns for 1yr, paid personal webhosting server/accounts for each intern, etc.
What was it like?
It’s good, and yes, it’s negotiable. Since it’s a remote program, pay was based on features completed/points earned.
Pay is based on performance. Deliver in time and get paid.
Er…unfortunately, there wasn’t. But that’s understandable.That would have made the program (unneccessarily) expensive for the company. Also, there wasn’t really a need. Things like laptops weren’t needed, cause everyone was expected to have one, and the company graciously provided help for those who had issues with theirs. Finally…it wasn’t a full-time job, complete with all the perks. It was an internship, a learning experience, and I’m pretty sure we all are happy with what we got.
But while it was a lot tougher, newbie devs still had a chance.
There was one of us who had ZERO we dev experience before the internship
Some others were newbie.
Some (like me) had some coding experience.
I still learnt a lot. Working with a team and collaborating with Git,
Working in an environment where it’s not just you that’s editing your code.
Used new libraries, used the command line for the first time, e.t.c
Having some previous experience does not mean I did not learn a lot.
It just showed me how many things I was doing wrong.
I completely understand when people say that PHP is very beginner friendly. Because you can write functional code that is SHIT which is what I had been doing for the most part.
I was part of the program as well and I’d gladly affirm that the experience was illuminating as much as it was challenging. Its probably the best way to empower newbie smart developers and sharpen their skills. You’ll get to use and master tools that are crucial in software development life circle. The upshot is that you will definitely get better while having fun and getting paid.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking, but it doesn’t really matter the language. I came in with some knowledge of Android and C++, and was taken aback when we were given work do on web. Thankfully, I stayed on and learnt quickly. In fact, everything I know about web dev, I learnt during the internship. You just need to be willing to learn.
I feel obliged to add that I was also a part of the program.
And it’s like everyone has said, being paid to become better. None of us that participated for a significant amount of time has said she/he wasn’t greatly improved by the program.
I got to meet awesome guys, notably Mark Essien himself. And Hotels.ng has a good culture, for those thinking about that.
Collaboration, discipline and development(in every sense of the word) were three of the most recurring themes during that period.
I have many great things to say about the experience, so I’ll just stop here.
Someone asked me these questions in a message and I think I should put the answer for any other person who needs it.
What did you do before the internship and what was your life like before the internship?
I started my NYSC in October 2015 and by the time the internship started, I was still a Corper.
Luckily for me, it was during the long holidays so I had enough time to focus on it.
Before the internship though, I had built a school portal wordpress plugin for the school I was serving at as well asa custome plugin to enable me run Proudly Nigerian.
What are the things you did to make them retain you?
I don’t know for sure. Only @mark can truly answer that.
However, I can say that everyone that was able to stay till the end had the following characteristics.
They can find solutions. A lot of things we were asked to do forced us to learn new things. The only way to stay afloat is to know how to learn.
They solve problems. We are given designs, told what we are to build. What it is to become. We had to think of how to do it, who to ask for direction, what tools to access, what libraries to add to the tool, e.t.c.
If you wait for someone to tell you everything, you are guaranteed not to meet the tasks.
Goal oriented. While I was the project manager for much of the internship, the process required everyone to be goal oriented. I will be given a goal, I and the team leaders will break this goal into smaller goals, and everyone will work to accomplish the goal he/she was given.
What would you advice me to do in order to build a career as a web developer?
Learn how to learn.
The state of software development means that knowledge goes stale pretty quickly.
New tools, new methods, new processes come up daily.
You must be able to learn and un-learn quickly.
What some pointers to show that I am ready to be employed as a web developer?
You can confidently give an experienced developer you code to look at.
Even if the person is not “experienced” a fellow developer that know the language well.
Having to go through this internship meant that people were not only looking at each other’s code but had to work with it.
It brings a new discipline when others rely on you.
Being able to help others. This internship means that we had to ask each other when stuck.
This meant that we had to help each other.
If you feel like you are ready to help people solve issues, and debug their code, then that’s a good thing.
If you do not yet have a team for that, go on stack overflow and see if there are any questions you can help answer.
How did you learn all the things you learnt to be a web developer?
100% self taught. With the web almost anything can be learnt with the right attitude.
Most of the developers I know are also self taught.
But make sure you find a way to practice all you learn.
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