Summer with Micro: My First Internship Experience!
My Career Kickstart with a FinTech Startup, Bangalore
I’ve always wanted to start my career in a technical capacity since I attend a Tier 3 college and am frightened of missing out on anything crucial that I’m currently learning via a specific vocation. The internship with Oibre labs Private Limited — Micro (@getmicro) proves a wholesome opportunity in itself, I secured the desired position in an Indian FinTech startup based in Bangalore (City in Karnataka) as a Software Development Engineering Intern. My job scope included the building of real-time products and tasks which are normally assigned with the help of Zoho WorkDrive task management service. I feel that it was an enriching experience to be a part of Micro’s summer internship as I got to learn a lot of technical knowledge and gain valuable hands-on software engineering experience through my engagements. I also had the chance to participate in numerous firm events to bond and forge friendships with my colleagues and fellow interns.
Talking about products, Micro is a platform that allows you to participate in alternative assets on a fractional basis.
Emphasizing a few terms such as:
- Oibre Labs Private Limited is the legal name incorporated. Micro is the Trade/Brand name of the startup.
- “FinTech” (Financial technology) is the technology and innovation that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. It is an emerging industry that uses technology to improve activities in finance.
- Software Development Engineering is a detailed field of study that applies engineering principles from design to software development. Software engineering development analyzes the user’s needs to build an application using software programming languages.
What I like about my internship experience
I like how interns are treated just like full-time associates and get assigned actual and meaningful tasks which are crucial and beneficial by asynchronous engagements. It’s a beautiful team with an individual skill-set of everyone makes me more towards a diverse environment… It feels interesting to be a part of the weekly meetings since the founder gave me a new moniker, “Shaktimaan,” for correctly spelling my name with a double “a”! haha. ^ ^
The most memorable part of my internship was when I started digging into the codebase and created the pull request on the first day itself. Being a community enthusiast and leader, I always work to spread the culture among folks, unexpectedly, the chief technology officer (CTO) came up with the initiative that aims to educate students and bring awareness about fractional assets & technology called “Micro Error404 Hackathon”. I shared my insights on outreach, sponsors and acing it, I love how being an intern I came across all such priorities!
The team also frequently holds sessions on non-technical topics like “Mental Health” in order to preserve a positive workplace culture.
All of them indicated a healthy work-life balance!
Challenges that I met during my internship
Yes, I’m an Industrious, I enjoy playing with blockers because it’s a great way to learn.
Freelancing is something that I have always been on the hunt for, and surprisingly, I got an opportunity to work with the Web3 startup, London simultaneously from June (my third month of internship). As a prefinal student, I faced a struggle managing my 24 hours for three crucial things: college, freelancing & internship. But I accomplished it, and I was really driven by my perception of my prowess in time management.
Just a little over three months ago, the only aspect of web development I was familiar with was the front-end. I had heard of a few back-end frameworks, but I had never had the chance to get my hands-dirty. I learned basic front-end skills from following the front-end challenges and basics projects with the help of freeCodeCamp, Frontend Masters and CodeWithHarry tutorials.
But that was just me getting my foot in the door.
I found myself fascinated by the advanced concepts that surrounded web development. I saw and worked with powerful devs who just seemed like wizards to me. But that only inspired me to learn more and DO more. Long story short, I decided to work as a full-stack developer and I am trying to master the MERN stack at the moment.
By following few tutorials for back-end development through YouTube, I initiated projects like:
- Authentication System with bycrypt & JWT in JavaScript
- Employee Management System for Administrator, HR & Employees
Since the organization doesn’t have any senior developers or technical mentors, I faced a few problems and blockers that won’t get solved by beginners. But because I’m a community folk and willing to learn, one of my friends Basant were always ready and willing to give their counsel and guidance to help me overcome these obstacles. He deserves a hearty shout-out! :D
What I learnt from my internship
Technically & non-technically, I gained skills in every sector. Since it was my first time, things occasionally didn’t go as planned, but the CTO and founder were incredibly encouraging by bringing up the lessons they had always taught me in a useful way. I always present them with my 100% productive achievements as a consequence!
As I joined from the starting phase of the organization, my tasks revolves mostly around initiating and developing new products that I worked on using JavaScript are coming soon page (front-end + back-end), beta web application (front-end), employee management system (back-end) and partner portal dashboard (front-end).
My biggest takeaway would be the new long-term relationships and connections which I had forged with my colleagues and fellow interns at Micro.
Thanks for making till the end : )
“My advice for young people is, study what you love and intern in what you want to do. And I think it’s okay to pivot as many times as you need to.”
— Eva Chen, Director of Fashion at Instagram
