Internships enlighten and inspire next generation developers
Thursday, February 21st, 2019
Maptek Australia summer interns have cited working as part of a professional team as the most rewarding aspect of the growing annual program.
The 2018/19 group, comprising seven Computer Science and Software Engineering students and graduates, was the largest cohort to take part in the initiative hosted in Maptek Adelaide office.
The interns worked on projects across the company’s mining technology solutions between November 2018 and February 2019.
The 2018/19 Maptek Australia summer interns with new colleague David Brice.
Rhys Menezes said he applied for the program to gain real-world experience.
‘I wanted to build and contribute to a big working project and learn things outside of a classroom,’ he said.
‘Being able to work with so many talented software engineers every day really helped me further develop my technical and critical thinking skills.’
Dallas McNeil agreed: ‘The knowledge I have gained in computer graphics is fantastic and real software engineering experience is invaluable.
‘It was fun and a memorable experience where I was able to expand my knowledge in many areas and get an insight into a professional software engineering workspace.’
Rhys Brailsford relished the challenges the ‘enlightening’ internship presented.
‘While I expected to learn hard skills, I never expected to learn so much about professionalism, ethics and communication,’ Rhys said.
‘I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy. There were definitely stressful times as I worked longer hours to try to get something done before a deadline. But honestly, that’s a real world experience, and if that isn’t what an internship is meant for, I don’t know what is!’
Rhys Menezes, Jayden Boskell and Rhys Brailsford deliver their internship presentations
As part of the Workbench team, Matthew D’Angelo’s internship involved working across different codebases and developing code for both fellow developers and customers.
‘The company culture at Maptek has certainly been a highlight of the experience,’ Matthew said.
‘One of the key elements I have been able to take away from the internship experience was how important teamwork is in a software development environment. It can be difficult to appreciate the importance of working together until you are given the opportunity to do so.’
The importance of reviewing code was crystalised in Taj Pereira’s mind through the experience.
‘I was amazed at the amount of time my fellow Engineers poured into evaluating my work,’ Taj said.
‘The in-depth analysis improved my code immensely and gave me a snapshot into the minds of much more experienced Engineers. Thanks to the very generous time given to me by my code reviewers, I leave this internship a much stronger programmer.’
Jayden Boskell also noted the importance of strict QA (quality assurance) in a professional environment and outlined a couple of tips for future interns.
‘I have become a better coder in general due to the QA,’ Jayden said.
‘It has made me far more thoughtful about my code and how easy or difficult it would be to understand. Make sure you always proofread your code before putting up for QA and talk to people at lunch – you might learn something.’
Abdul ‘Mohsi’ Jawaid, who claimed the Maptek Prize in Computer Science last year, accepted a permanent Software Engineer position at Maptek one month into his internship.
‘I will definitely be using everything I have learnt during the internship phase and making sure I continue to grow in the company and develop my skills as much as I can,’ Mohsi said.
‘Brainstorming and talking problems over with other people help a ton. Just explaining your issue to someone is enough for your brain to click and say ‘hang on …’ and then you figure it out. Making use of people around you and helping other people can go a long way.’
Maptek Evolution Team Leader & Internship Coordinator Will Reid was delighted with this year’s program in Adelaide, which involved Vulcan, PointStudio, Evolution, BlastLogic, Eureka and Workbench projects.
‘Maptek takes great pride in being able to provide these students with an introduction to a professional career, and supporting our academic community,’ he said.
‘We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with South Australian universities so we can introduce many more students to the benefits of real-world experience.’
You can read more about Maptek University Partnerships here: www.maptek.com/university
