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Sunday, September 9, 2012

My Second Year @ Vodafone Egypt's Internship Program

I was re-accepted for Vodafone's internship program for my great performance last year. This time I wasn't going to be a help desk engineer, rather a software engineer. I was given the task of developing an improvised monitoring tool for the CRM infrastructure.

The mess I have to go through :D
As far as I understand, internships at places like Google and Microsoft do give you development guidelines and tips on how to make good documentation. In my case, I didn't get any of these, rather the platform API reference (One of the weirdest APIs I've ever seen) and an internet which only opens Facebook and Google (Only results)... Oh! And a 10 year-old laptop. It was a challenge of understanding the platform API, performance tuning, documentation, and coping with a slow device (The mouse used to fly around the screen with no response from the mouse pad)... Without any assistance. In other words, I single handedly implemented the software development life cycle. I'm proud I reached the finish line!

In fact, I was deeply recommended for my work, which turned out to be actually rather important for another team within the Vodafone premises, that I got a part-time opportunity with that team. This internship made me learn a lot! I've never done a project that was carefully engineered to perform quick, nor did I ever made a documentation for people who will actually read and make use of the tool. It was also a delight impressing directors with my work.

The advice I would like to give on how I got to this level is that it takes time and hard work to reach high; you can't simply reach perfection without building a solid foundation for your knowledge and skills. There also steps that should be taken, even if they weren't necessarily related to your field of study. I started small as a participant at Better World NGO (Nothing related to engineering), then got to Vodafone last year as a result (As a help desk engineer, still not much related to my field). Later, I got myself into satellite systems engineering with Cairo University's Space Systems Technology Lab.

I must thank my awesome manager for giving me an opportunity for a trainee to develop a rather important and challenging tool, and for recommending my work to directors and other teams.

I must thank that person who got me into "getting outside the classroom" and start my life with Better World NGO.

I must thank those who have supported me and helped me learn more.

And El7amdle Allah for this gift of knowledge and status :)

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