Spring Internship 2019

The program

This is a second Internship Program at Dwarves Foundation. Held in Spring of 2019, we handpicked every single candidate that passed our CCAT test. Changing our measurement metrics from the last program, we aim to select the candidates not just with strong background, bilingual, and also we feel that they are unconventional.

Over 160 candidates, we only selected 12. They are divided into three groups, each group with people from backend, mobile, and web. Golang is still the primary language that they have to learn and practice in the first month. Golang is a handy but straightforward language to get people on the same coding page. With Golang they can quickly pick up the language and then focus on the problem set they need to solve.

After the first month, they went back to their career choice. If they want to do web, at this point in time, they will know a whole web front and the backend. If they want to do mobile development, they will know how the backend works, not just their view components. For the backend guy, we will continue to teach them a bit of how the deployment works. The main point is still to get them the whole picture of the system they gonna build.

Learning from the last program, this year, we tried to add in the missing pieces of software development knowledge that they haven’t been taught in school or in open source projects. To distinguish Coder, Programmer, and Software Engineer, they need to learn the difference. The training program includes a quick glance over

  • Software Engineering Introduction
  • Software Modelling
  • Software Architecture
  • Software Construction
  • Software Process
  • Software Quality

Its goal

The program was designed to bring hands-on experience to the candidates. Applying Pair Programming practice, we assign each group to a specific mentor. They had their time learned from the mentors on the developing products.

  • A DevOps web app wrapping over Google Cloud, Azure, and AWS to provide a single interface, manage an entire lifecycle of an application.
  • A system that aggregates schedule from all the sports events and deeply integrates to your personal calendar.

Experience all the best practices from codebase structure; multiple environments from development, testing, staging, and production; gitflow with pull request and code review, microservices architecture, etc. All the cutting edge technologies from k8s, AWS deployment, react redux, Netlify, Cloudflare …

Highlights

The metrics

  • Strong background
  • Bilingual
  • Unconventional
  • Growth potential

We say yes to students with a strong foundation, growth potential, and good English. The student with a strong foundation has a step forward compared to other students. They can pick up thing very quick and ready for the real project. The candidates with a right attitude toward professional will win the position.

Average age

The best year to apply for an internship at Dwarves Foundation? We think the senior students are the most suitable for the internship program. We are likely picking 80% of senior students than 3rd year and 2nd year. The senior students will have more chance to focus on fulltime job after their graduation.

Diversity

There are more female candidates this year. We love to increase gender diversity in the team to bring perspectives. Despite the fact that female staff still have disadvantages to win the leadership position due to stress and heavy workload.

Culture

The interns love our culture. Having a healthy team culture provides a good environment for self-developing. It feels like they are already a part of the team.

Time

Three months are still too short for them to absorb the program. The first month is for fundamental catching up. The next two months are for hands-on experience.

Next program

Despite the fact that all the metrics are essential, we feel that during the first days of their careers, the attitude is the most important characteristic. The next batch should be more on attitude over skill. 80% of interns with good attitude tend to be hardworking

University

Candidates from top universities like the University of Science or the University of Technology have a stronger background than others. But at the same time, they are not bilingual, which affect their confidence in working in multiple culture environment. Top candidates learned English by themselves.

Technology

80% of candidates want to learn technologies over foundation knowledge. Most of them can’t tell the difference between software service firm and product company. Trendy technologies like blockchain and AI still catch their eyes.