Kirill

How Did I Get into DevSauna Internship Program?

I studied at the Faculty of Control Systems at TUSUR University (Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics). Once I saw the news about the recruitment in DevSauna. I got interested — I didn't know about DevSauna before, but I had heard a lot of good things about Rubius. It turned out to be an internship at a company for beginning programmers, the best ones get a job offer. I doubted — do I have enough experience, will I qualify? I filled in a form for a frontend developer – I have always been passionate about creating interfaces. I sent a sample code, even though it was written in C#, but not in JS. Of course, I was worried, waiting for an answer. And then I was invited to an interview. So I became a Rubius DevSauna intern!

About the Project I Worked on in DevSauna

In DevSauna, the teams spend two months working on actual projects under the mentorship of Rubius specialists. I joined the team that was developing Living Lab Tomsk portal – a community for creating a "smart city" and improving the urban environment. On the portal, Tomsk residents can make requests for the improvement of their area. I was writing the website client and the administrator panel, and the other guys – the backend.

The most difficult and interesting thing was to make an interactive map with urban facilities that had already been improved by the Laboratory. They include, for example, a park with trampolines and smart lights on Usova. I was working on it together with Nikita, a cool developer from Rubius. He helped me finalize and polish the map.

The work was in full swing. At the same time, I continued to study at the University, and after the classes I ran to my laptop to finish in time the next important feature. I wanted to get the most out of the internship.

There was a catastrophic lack of hours in the day! The project was not a training project, but an actual one. So I had to code a lot in order not to fail and learn something. Friends asked me: "Do you even sleep?" – they fell asleep, I was wring a code, they woke up, I still was wring a code. The time ran fast, but I was very fascinated by the project, so I didn't notice. And then I was surprised that it was already evening outside the window. But it gave a hefty boost to development. 

About Mentors

I liked the mentors' attitude – they were maximally involved in the project results. At any moment, it was possible to ask a question and get a detailed answer, arrange a brainstorm together and generate new ideas. One of the mentors was Alexei Abramov, the technical director of Rubius, a qualified specialist and an amazing leader. He supervised the tasks, did not let us relax, always helped with advice and was ready to listen to any my project proposals.

I Was Invited to Rubius to Develop a Cool Product

At the end of the internship, the projects should be defensed, the so-called Demo Day.
Our project was the best and I was invited to continue working on it as a Rubius employee. The efforts invested were not wasted – my dream has come true! It's good that there is such a program like DevSauna, which gives beginners who do not yet have a lot of experience in development a chance to prove themselves.

Now my goal is to continue to develop and to become one of the best frontend developers at Rubius.

Upon finishing work on the Living Lab portal, I was assigned to the development of the company's flagship product – Planyway, a calendar and a timeline for team tasks. The product is used by over 500,000 people worldwide, including Tesla, Amazon and Apple. The thought that I am doing something cool for hundred thousand users is incredibly motivating for further growth.

This year I myself have become a mentor for young developers. I have always enjoyed exchanging knowledge, sharing experience and helping someone to become a better person. After all, you become better too. Mentoring made my work at Rubius even more interesting.

Tips for Beginning Programmers

Be ready to learn a lot and immediately put knowledge into practice, even if the knowledges is still poor. It helps to keep the spark alive – you see the results of your learning and get even more inspired.

Don't try to understand everything at once. Do as Ilon Mask – start learning from the base, then move on. Don't understand something? It means you have missed something, go back to the beginning and figure it out. In programming, this approach works best. Create a roadmap – this will make it easier to arrange your learning from scratch to senior.

I don't believe in talent or luck. The ability to write code is also a skill, so you just need to methodically improve it step by step.
Do you want to do an internship at DevSauna and get a job offer at Rubius?
Write to us: https://vk.com/devsauna