Month: November 2021

Prior to starting as a Junior Engineer, I did not have much practical experience working within an Agile environment. The few internships I completed did not operate in a structured Agile manner, and we did not workin within a Sprint Cycle. So, needless to say, it was a little bit of a learning curve figuring out how to effectively work within a Scrum environment on a fully remote team.

My first sprint with the team was a mostly positive experience. I was assigned a ticket that was related to a Logging Service object. The scope of the issue was relatively small, so it allowed me to spend time familiarizing myself with the new codebase. After some digging around and debugging, I was able to make the necessary changes and submit a Pull Request to my team. The review that my team gave provided constructive feedback and tips on best code practices.

Since my first sprint, I have had the ability to work on multiple feature and defect tickets. One thing that surprised me with the Sprint process was how dynamic it can be. Being able to adapt to unknown issues or an increase in scope is critical to setting realistic goals. Also, as with most jobs, effectively communicating with teammates is a great way to avoid surprises when deadlines approach. Overall, it has been a great experience to work within an Agile framework, and it has provided me with a lot of structure to grow as a software developer.

After making it through the gauntlet of applications, and passing the technical interview, I had finally been offered a full time software engineer position! I was very excited to be given an opportunity to work with a company that seemed to have similar interests as myself, but I knew it would be a steep learning curve. Luckily, my experience so far has been incredibly positive.

I joined my team in the middle of a push towards mobile development. This meant that my main responsibilities revolved around building out features that already existed on the web, on mobile devices. This was a great opportunity to apply the skills I learned during OSU’s mobile development course! Even though the technology stack was slightly different than what we used in class, I still felt as though a lot of the lessons could be applied. There are a lot of similarities between React Native and Flutter SDK, and I felt as though I was able to make meaningful contributions early on.

While it has only been a month since I started this new job, I can already see the benefits of being enrolled in this program. Not only has the mobile development skills been beneficial, but also some of the web development, database, and general software development skills. It is really exciting to be able to apply the skills I have learned through this program into a real world setting!