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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
Summer Internship Insights: Gaining Tech Experience at Redgate Software
Join us for an insightful episode as we chat with Karyna Botvina, Blessing Emmanuel, and Rukaiya Khondaker, three talented interns from Redgate Software.
They spent their summer gaining invaluable experience in the tech industry before heading back to complete their final year at university.
From their journey into tech to their day-to-day experiences at Redgate, we explore what it's like to bridge the gap between academia and professional life. Tune in to discover their challenges, triumphs, and the lessons they're taking away from their 10-week internship adventure.
SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.
Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.
Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in. Again, I am Katie Batesman, the content director at GCAN Code, and today we are discussing summer internship insights, gaining tech experience at Redgate Software. I've got three incredible and talented interns with me today from Redgate. I've got Karina, Blessing, and Kai with me today. Welcome, ladies. Thank you so much for joining me. It's a pleasure to have you all on here. They're all spending their summer gaining invaluable experience in the tech industry before heading back to complete their final year at university. So we're going to pick their brains about what they're doing this summer and life so far at Redgate. So welcome everyone. We're going to start with some intros, if that is okay. Blessing. Let's open the floor for you.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, my name is Blessing. I study computer science at City University of London. I've got two more years left on my degree because I'm doing an MSI. I'm an intern at Redgate Software on the Rootmasters team. So that's underneath the monitor product. So we're focused more on the architecture and also Postgres. So working with that database type under monitor. A bit about me, I would say how I got into tech. Mostly because, and it's quite a funny story, but um there's this film called The Internship.
SPEAKER_01:Well, okay.
SPEAKER_00:The internship, and it's um, I can't remember their real names, but they basically get an internship to go into Google, and they're like these middle-aged men, etc. down the line. I was inspired by that, you know, to go into tech. Um, so picked it for GCSCs, A-levels, I'm in university. My initial plans as well have changed every year. I would say I'm like a planned individual, so I try to stick to okay, this is what I'm gonna do, this is what I'm gonna do next. But I've realized as the years have gone on, it's changed a lot. Um initially, like there was AI, you know, with AI and everything nowadays. That's what I wanted to go into. Then I started looking more on like software engineering, and then uh looking at more um like low-level stuff, so like working with like C language and programming and back-end stuff. Um so that's kind of where I am now, who knows in the next year or so. But yeah, those are my interests right now.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. And um, did you have any influence at home, or was it literally more like visibility of what you saw on screen, for instance?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so um literally no no one in my family was into tech. Um, and like I said, the film very much did make an impact on me. And then I remember picking it for GCSE's computer science and then going home with a textbook and like talking to all my siblings about it. And my brother, who did like aerospace engineering at university, I think I spoke about computer science so much that he changed like um he changed like his um career and is now a data engineer.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So I think I've influenced my brother.
SPEAKER_01:You've already influenced him. I love that. I love that because in terms of visibility, that is you you see something and it inspires you. And if we don't see it on film or on TV, in the 90s, there was a lady on the news, she was a war correspondent, K A D, and I wanted to be her because she was on the news, and that was it. Like that when you see people, you think I want to do that. So it's good to hear that um it's that visibility is improving as well. And young ladies are thinking these are other things that are 100%. Um amazing. Um, Karina yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Um okay. So my name is Karina, and I've just finished my second year studying artificial intelligence. Um I was inspired to go into tech by my family. Um, most of them are engineers, some working with hardware and a few with software. So I've always been sort of surrounded by role models. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was. Uh yeah. Before studying AI, I was focused on cybersecurity in Kiev when I was 15 years old, which gave me like a strong technical foundation. But then I realized, well, I don't like cybersecurity. I was more into I don't know, app development and other sort of things. So then I applied to university and there I gained um research experience working on pathogen host interactions. So basically I've got experience using LLMs for named entity recognition. Uh yeah, and that I realized oh, that's what I want to do because cybersecurity was not my thing at all. And my family was always like, Well, we can be a hardware engineer, maybe you want to try yourself there, but but no, I didn't like hardware at all.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, um the cybersecurity community, they're a very different they're a very different bunch of people, I have noticed. And and when you know some of them as well. I remember going on a trip with a few um who who wrote uh about cybersecurity, and they were like quite paranoid individuals and they hacked into the system on the plane and took everything down, like all the entertainment system went down. I was like, seriously, they're that type of person, they're like, Oh, you know, I've found a vulnerability in something on the plane, and I was like, Yeah, but now none of us can watch movies, brilliant. Yeah, oh yeah, very much a unique lot of people. Um, it sounds so like you're enjoying your choice and enjoying your choice at university. Is that everything that you thought it was gonna be when when you studied uh went in the direction that you wanted at university?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, I definitely thought like first no, first thing I applied for computer science. Uh but then AI came and I started being interested in it, and I was like, mm, okay, I'm gonna apply to AI because I knew my university still have to give me a knowledge of some sort of computer science. Uh so I thought like I want to be more focused in AI rather than learning a bunch of languages um at the same time, if it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, definitely. And obviously AI is really growing um in popularity as well. So a really good area to to move into at the moment, and something that's just gonna keep expanding and and growing. Um yeah, so much to do in that area. Um and last but not least, we have Kai. Tell us all about you.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, hi, I'm Kai. I study MNG Computing, Visual Computing, and Robotics at Imperial College London uh as an integrated master's. And I came into tech for a pretty interesting reason. I have always been quite competitive, and I have an older sibling who is really, really good at maths. Well, as a kid, I was also very interested in maths, but I just knew like I'm not beating my sibling in this competition, like they've got maths down. Um, so I was like, okay, so what could I do that is kind of similar to maths, but also feels a bit more me, and I know that I could be better at it. And at the ripe age of around 13 in year eight, I was like, ooh, robotics looks interesting. So I hyper focused on robotics, started looking for universities at that age to see like where could I study robotics, and found Imperial and found that they had a MN visual computing and robotics course. And I was like, okay, they have the and robotics, I'll go into there. I'll learn a bit about other things in computing, but I'm really interested in robotics. Then I entered Imperial and forgot about robotics, and I've actually found that I like a lot more things in computing, such as software engineering, but also I'm more interested in the other half of my strand recently, visual computing. Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. I love that you connected that way with maths as well. I'm I I've said this before on this podcast. I'm really envious of people that can do maths. Like you're you're one or the other. I'm words, so you really struggle with numbers, and you're just one or the other. And I just wish I were that person that could just make sure my math maths, and it doesn't. I love it when people say they they really enjoyed maths, um, and they went on to to go in that direction. Um, but I take it as um the others university, you're really enjoying university. It sounds like you've got quite a um uh an opportunity to try new things as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, um, I I found whilst I was in secondary school actually, I studied GCSE computing as well as A-level computing, and I found that the quality of computer science education before university uh is to be improved. Um a lot of it doesn't feel very up to date, a lot of it feels out of date, and um generally I felt like the lessons were more self-guided rather than like structured as you expect at school. So I kind of went into Imperial kind of blind. Like I had a few projects on the side that I did independently, and that's kind of what pushed me through with my application. Um, but I feel like I've really shone through the course at Imperial because a lot of it is learning that I would never have experienced by myself. Um and yeah, I feel like I've really grown into tech through my course.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Nice. That is nice to hear that you got you got the learning you wanted eventually. Um, and then obviously the tech industry changed you so much as well that it sets you up for that mindset of constant learning as well. Because as you know, when you go into the workplace, it doesn't stop there and uh you you just keep learning. So um thank you. So we're all gonna talk today a little bit about you interning at Redgate. Um, so I want to throw a question out there to you um about what drew each of you to apply for an internship at Redgate and how has the experience matched your expectations so far? Um, bless it, shall we go back to you for that one?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, so speaking honestly, I didn't know who Redgate Software was before I applied. Um, I think most students in their like second, third years, penultimate years start to just apply to whatever companies they see. Um so I had like over a hundred applications for internships. Um but you know, after I'd gone through the first stage, then obviously you start to read about the companies that you're applying for, you know, in depth. And what I did like about Redgate was the fact that it's a smaller company. Um, lots of people, especially when you're in university, your main focus is to gain experience and um learn the practices. And it's not just about, you know, oh, my coding is better, it's about knowing how to work in that kind of environment. Because like I've seen um software engineering like practices and the way teams are done, you know, having boards and tickets, etc. like that, lots of that is not transferable to other um careers. Um, it's very like niche, very different the way it works and very organized. So um working in a smaller company where I felt like my contributions would be seen more. Um, you know, I know people working in like other big tech companies, and they're either they're maybe given work to do that's not going to be pushed anywhere just to see what they're capable of, or maybe the work they're given is not really useful, should I say, you know, they're not seeing the direct impact. Whereas here, um, I've been here for what how long have you been here? Six, seven weeks, can't remember, it's been so long already. But within this time, you know, I've pitch PRs, merged them to main, and I can already see them in the final product. Oh, incredible. Within this short time, I've really seen the impact that I've made, which is nicer. I think it's as well, it's really good for like um younger people who are just getting into their career to be able to see that kind of stuff, you know. Lots of people when they're graduating or they're still in university, you're kind of in this, you know, habit of like, oh, I'm studying, I'm learning, you know, I'm arising. So you want to be able to do work that's you know um complex, but also, you know, not too hard, but you feel like you're doing something, you're contributing, you're working, etc. Like that, not something that you're just coasting by and you're being complacent or like you're not really contributing. So it's been really nice to have that kind of balance. Um another thing I would say is the fact that the company is very like heavy, like DevOps. So, like I'm sure they call themselves like data DevOps. And DevOps was something that I was wanted to like understand more, um, like the practices themselves, because these are stuff like this is kind of the kind of stuff that's not taught in university. Like you kind of learn all the theory and you do projects and group projects, but like they don't really tell you about, you know, having a dev environment, you know, CICD pipelines, you know, um automation, collaboration, etc. Like that. And all of this stuff is extremely applicable to the workplace. And it's like without any experience, without any internship, you kind of just expect it to come and just understand everything immediately. So I liked the fact that um Redgate was heavily focused on DevOps and integration, and you know, because they have like smaller teams and it's a smaller company, it would feel more integrated, even just with what we're working with.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? It's great to hear as well you talk about being in a smaller company because you are right. People, a lot of people think, I'll go for the big corporates, like that's where um it's gonna be safer and that's gonna be like bigger projects. And actually, I've worked in lots of small companies and you learn so much because you are given so much responsibility because there's no one else there. So it means that you just do everything super, super fast, um, which some people don't like. Some people don't like having that responsibility, but some people they just excel in that environment. You're like, I just want to learn, like, give me that, and and I will excel. Um, but yeah, I love that. Like going for a small company, I always advocate for that. You will just learn at like hyper speed and be given that responsibility and learn all those soft skills that you don't really get at university, like the politics of being flung into a team and how to communicate with your team and how to um not just as you said, not just have great code, but to work as a project and actually push something through. All of those things you don't really experience at university unless you're doing things on the side, but you don't, it's the politics sometimes of being in work, how to navigate that. Um really important. So um Karina, yourself, what what led you to Redgate and and how have you found your experience so far?
SPEAKER_02:Um to be honest, I just gave it a shot, not really expecting to get in. Yeah, I was not expected to get in at all. Like because I was mainly applying for machine learning roles, like when obviously most places rejected me without even probably looking at my CV. But yeah, at first I wasn't sure if the internship was the right fit because I thought, like, oh, it's software engineering, and I spend my time on the research that includes machine learning. Like, but when I got my technical interview with Red Gate, like I really enjoyed it. I don't know how to describe it, but we even like laughed and like a bit during the conversation, which was for me it was extraordinary because usually during the technical interviews, you like sit like that. You have your notes on another screen and you like really nervous, no nervous, yeah. And I think yeah, that's when I started getting like genuinely interested and excited about the red gate. Um, so yeah, um when I learned that redgate has a relaxed, like sort of like be prefers to culture. I was a bit skeptical. Like after all, every job posting says it, right? And yeah, well, to be honest, it's actually been even better than they expected. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01:You're so right. Some people will write that on a job application, and then you'll get in somewhere, and like you said, actually, the feeling of how you felt in that technical interview was different compared to other places, and you're so right, you do see that little statement, and then people will get in somewhere and they will think this isn't what I signed up to. And we actually get told on here as well, it's um some companies will launch like a Slack group for women in tech, and they'll go like, Oh, we've well, we've got a Slack group for women in tech, and you're like, Brilliant, but how does everybody feel when they come to work every day? It's very different to whether or not you drop a few messages in a Slack group every now and then. So you're right, and that feeling that you felt in that interview, it's like you grab hold of that, like I really enjoyed that technical interview. I didn't expect that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like it was it was different from other technical interviews, I would say. Like I felt relaxed, I felt myself, I think, and I'm really glad I got in here because it sort of sort of helped me to open up to speak up more. And yeah, like one of the best things here is that interns are treated like software engineers, like um I'm contributing to real work, than just doing those intern tasks. And it's definitely not like in the movies where the interns just like fetching coffee or like doing like searching out some papers, yeah, like acting like they're busy reading emails. No. No, yeah, it's definitely better than I expected to be. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and Kai, yourself, what led you and and how are you feeling about your experience so far?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, first of all, I totally echo both Blessing and Karina's points. Like, um, one, I was really drawn to the DevOps side of it. When I saw the application, I was like, oh, wait, I haven't really got that much experience with that. We do do a little bit of it in my course, but it's maybe a week's worth of work. So, like in the grand scheme of things, I hadn't really touched on it. Um, so that really drew me to it. Um, but also, yeah, the interview process, the application, one thing that I really enjoyed was the take-home application. A lot of places give you OAs, which are online assessments, which are like timed, and it's like a lot of pressure. Whereas Red Gate gave sent me an email giving me a zip file of please complete this within the 17th of January or something. And that was months away. And I was like, they've actually given me some time to like actually think about this and kind of optimize my work. Um they were like, we expect you to complete it in two hours, but you know, give it your best shot. Um, and I did, and it it it just it felt a lot more relaxed. It felt like they valued the fact that I was a student and I had a course to balance alongside my applications, because application season is a very, very stressful time. And then when I went to the actual interview, it was so chill. I like I really thoroughly enjoyed the interview, and it made me realize like these like Red Gate was so like comforting and very like um it felt like they valued me as a person, uh, whereas a lot of applications kind of just see you as like potential applicant robotic almost. Um, not in the way that I want.
SPEAKER_01:Not in the robotics that you love.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but yeah, it was it felt like I was being valued as an applicant. And um just that kind of environment that they gave me helped me really excel in the interview because I just felt like, yeah, as Karina said, I could be myself. Um and then that ended up being in my favor because I think two hours after my final interview, I got the offer, which was quite nice.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Um that's a confidence boost as well, doesn't it? Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:I very much felt like, oh, they actually value me as like a potential person to work in a company. Um but yeah, and then the experience so far, obviously, Red Gate, whilst a small company, is quite an established company. I think they've been around 20, 25 years, which in the tech world, uh, given how many tech companies there are, is quite old. Um and because of that, we have a lot of legacy code, which is something that I will would never have experienced as part of my uni course. A lot of the group projects that we work on, for example, are quite small. Even the ones that are built, like for example, I did this one that's well known in some other universities called Pintos, and that's a quite a big code base for a university standard. But the repository that I have to work on at Redgate is nothing compared to anything I've ever seen. And that experience of navigating the repository for one thing, learning how to debug something like that, having to investigate different uh avenues that could have gone wrong. Um, usually at university, when something goes wrong, it's code that you've written. But now I've had to think, okay, no, this is built on the backs of like thousands of people before me, thousands being like, it's actually a 500 people company now, but obviously people have left and joined or whatever. Um it's knowing like maybe this wasn't wasn't the right way to go about this a year ago, even, um, and learning how to balance that with your own work is just very interesting. It's something I've never experienced.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that as well. Um, because I know um the talent team at Redgate well, and they are incredibly selective, by the way, um who they invite in. But also, you're so right. Getting that real world experience of sometimes what you learn at university, and it's usually the new, you're learning new things at university. It's not always the case when you actually get in and you're working on a real life project. It's not always what you're going to be working on. And like you said, that legacy code is something that is going to crop up and you then have to tackle that challenge. Um, and we try and bust um quite a few myths on this podcast about what your day would actually be like working in tech. And we try and get that out there that it's not always um, there are usually a couple of misconceptions that your day is really boring and really dry and you never do anything fun. And uh also um that it doesn't really align with what you do at university, that it might be, you know, all of the uh you think it's gonna be highly technical all the time, and that your day job is just gonna be coding and really, really technical all the time. And we try and actually give a uh an overview of what your day is actually gonna be like and the reality of what it is actually like to work at a tech company, um, and things like that, legacy code, so important, things that you just wouldn't um experience at university, but getting that experience inside a company um invaluable. And on that note, I want to hear about your day jobs. So, uh, what have you actually been doing? Um, so can you walk us through a typical day in your internship? Um, you all sound like you're already working on lots of different projects um and actually getting to help and not shredding paper. So, what kind of things have you been working on? Um, what kind of tasks? Um, Lesson, let's go back to you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um so when we first started, you know, because you're working with such a big code base, you know, it takes the first week, I think was mostly us just trying to learn where we were, what we were doing, what our team like was doing. You know, my team rootmasters work on art um the architecture of monitor. What's architecture? What are we talking about? What are we doing? Um and as well, I prefer, I know I liked it, but um, what Redgate does is that has um it swaps every two weeks which team is on um support. So support is basically just talking with other customers, not directly, but when they have issues with something or something's not working, etc. Like that, then um it gets sent to support whatever team on support, what other team is on support, pick up the tickets and you know, fix the bug basically. Um, I found it really um good to have that my first two weeks. So we want support. As soon as I joined, um, my team went on support. And I felt like it was really good for me because um when you're working on support and you have these, you'll basically have these tickets that are like, this is the issue, something's not working. And then you kind of just have to do finding where the issue is, which I think is the biggest part of the work, and then sometimes it's just a a little change in like the UI or something like that. So I think it was a good entrance into what um looking at the code base and into um monitor itself. But since you know, the third week, I would say, um my normal day-to-day is you know, we start at nine. We have stand-ups at 9.30, and our team just gets together, we go through all the tickets on the that's newly been moved into the done section, newly been moved into the review, and then everything in progress. Um, so everyone speaks there. It's kind of used as a time for everyone to collaborate as well. Um, I definitely know I use it as a time to ask any questions I have. So I'll say, you know, this is what I'm working on, this is what I'm stuck with, and it's kind of forcing everyone to kind of help me, um, or like let anyone know if they're able to pair later, etc., like that. Um, and then I just continue on the day with my task. Right now I've been assigned kind of a mini project. Um, it's something that my team has said they've been wanting to do for a couple of um for like a year or so, but they haven't had the time or like the people to spare to be able to do it. So it's nice that they entrusted me with it, which is nice. Um, it's basically a project where I have to re-index um Lucene and how, you know, oh how all of the top queries. So for we have a bunch of queries, and you'll query the server, you know, you'll say what what was the CPU at this time, or etc. like that. You'll have a bunch of queries that you have. Um, and then we'll have top queries. So these are the ones that are queried the most, so the queries that are most often, and um there was a way that we were storing these before, but we needed to change that to make everything consistent between um SQL Server and Postgres. So it's a completely new function that I'm working on that I'm building myself, which is really fun. There's been a lot of, like Kai was saying, when you're working working with legacy code that's built on having one functionality and you're trying to add your own functionality towards it, those methods that you're trying to call won't work, might not work with the situation that you're dealing with. I've had that multiple times. My couple of past weeks have been a lot of debugging, which is which has been nice because I've never debugged, like not to that level, like I've never really worked with debugging to that level. So I've done a lot of pairing sometimes, working with different team members, um, as um aside from my manager, um working on debugging different issues, changing things. That were in legacy code and then also adding my own code. I would say that my team as well was quite independent the way that we work, which I think suits me. So that's props to the talent team who put me in a great team that suit me. So it I do spend quite a lot of my day trying to like independently work on my task. But then it's nice to know that I always have, you know, a way to ask someone a question, you know, send into Slack, you know, does anyone know the answer to this, etc., like this, uh like that, um, or pair with them, etc. Like, yeah, and stuff like that. So that's what I've been working on so far.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. And it sounds as though like your day is um and and will be your day job at one point being um fits in problems and challenges. I I you remind me of a lady, um, I met a lady years ago who said to me, uh, when you say your job title to people, they don't quite understand what you do because some people have really complex job titles, and they're like, what on earth does that mean? So she worked in sales, and instead of saying whatever her convoluted sales job title was, she would just say, Hi, I'm so-and-so. I find the shortest route to the money. And that was how she'd introduce herself. So you're almost like the fixer. Like you I fix people's problems. That's literally all you need to say. My name is Blessing, I fix people's problems. Like that's it. Which sounds like a really fun job, to be fair. Um incredible. Karina, tell us about your day. What have you been working on? What's life like on your team?
SPEAKER_02:This summer I'm interning in the Flyway team, and Flyway is a tool that helps developers keep their database changes under control and in sync across environments, um, making deployments smoother and more reliable. So, yeah. A typical day on my team starts with the morning stand-up where we share what we've accomplished uh the day before, what we planning um to work on today, and any blockers or disruptions. And after that, it depends on what we are working on. Like right now, we are building a new feature for the for the product. So most of the time we are mobbing or pair programming. Um yeah, um, then we have lunch and then continue working and finish with uh retro at the end of the day, which is fun. Um yeah, but the first few weeks uh were mostly about settling in and like getting comfortable within the team and the workflow. So I use this opportunity to ask lots of questions and really learn about the product because it's a lot to take in, and for you to contribute more emphatically, you just need to know this information.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um but yeah, so far I've learned what it's like to work in a in an agile environment, um, collaborating closely with teammates and taking on a variety of tickets outside of the main project. Like if I want to focus on a solo work and explore something different. Um so yeah, so it's hands-on experience, uh, it's hands-on collaborative experience, which like I could never get at university.
SPEAKER_01:So like you um there's a lot of people for you to reach out to at Redgate as well if you do have questions. It does, I think um we talk about imposter syndrome a lot on this podcast as well, where you get in an environment and you think somebody's gonna find me out, somebody's gonna know. But it sounds like you're in an environment where it's okay to ask questions and everybody's in this together and you don't feel like that, hopefully, in meetings.
SPEAKER_02:Gradge helped me with a confidence in that sense that at university you cannot be wrong, like you would have some sort of like uh consequence, or like you would get a bad grade. But here, like when you uh have an idea of a solution and you say it, you sort of like not you're not worry about uh criticism.
SPEAKER_01:Being in an environment where you're allowed to test and try new things can only boost your confidence and boost whether or not you actually want to put your hand up for things in the future is is another thing. And I worked at an American company once who really didn't mind what I did as long as I didn't cost them any money. And they said, just don't cost us any money, but try something. If you want to do something, then then give it a try. And it made such a difference to my experience in work and such a boost to my confidence as a young person to think I'm in an environment where I can try things, and if they fail, it's absolutely fine. Like we'll just learn from it and move on. Um, but sometimes being in an environment where you you're not encouraged to try in case something goes wrong, that's when you tend to shut down as an individual and you think we don't really want to be here, and you probably will end up moving on to another company at some point. Um so that's great to hear that they they have fostered that environment where at least you feel like you can try. Um, and you don't always have to be right. That's absolutely fine too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, really enjoy my PDP um meetings with my manager, um, like which are great for focusing on areas I want to improve and like getting feedback along the way. Um, like it's sort of like it's really a good way to keep track of my progress during the internship.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. And Kaya, is your day job similar to that? Allowed to test and bow and pick yourself up? And what is your job like on your team?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, so I like blessing work on the Red Gate Monitor product. I specifically focus on Oracle at the moment. Um, and luckily for me, I as soon as I joined, we started a new user story. Um, so from the ground up, I've been helping push this feature through. And that like to start an internship on doing something completely new with your team rather than catching up to what they've been doing, I felt was invaluable. Like it was a really, really good experience. Um every morning we have the daily stand-up. Mine's at 9.15. I'm very jealous. Blessing. I wish mine was at 9.30. Um and then 10 to 15 minutes. It does make a difference in a company, yeah. Yep. And after our standup, we uh usually type in our Slack channel, like, does anyone want to pair on a specific task? Um, or I'll just pick up a ticket from to the to-dos. And yeah, I'll just work on that for the rest of the day, look at some PRs that need to be reviewed if anyone's finished anything. Uh, if I'm ever stuck, what's amazing about the Red Gate Interim program is that you have a your own manager. So I have been often texting my manager, like, is there anything I should do here? Or like, do you think this is right? Um, but that connection is really, really good. And yeah, sometimes on Wednesdays, and I'm pretty sure every team has this, or maybe not Wednesdays, but at the end of one of the days of the week, we'll have social time. So we'll get on call and we'll play a game. We'll play code names. There's this, there are some really weird online games out there. And yeah, we have we compete and have a good time. One thing I like about Red Gate, they make the time to make sure that you're having fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, my gosh, especially if you work hybridly as well, connecting with people outside of your day job. And uh and you mentioned tickets there. That's so important to make sure that you connect outside of your tickets and to connect as a team because I've worked in a company where that has happened, and all you do is you pick up your tickets and you do work, and you can very much disappear into not talking to other people, and for them to make the effort to connect as a team so important as well. For again, for the culture and your mental health, you're not gonna be thinking, you know what, I met no one while I was here and I just did my tickets, I just did life on my own. You're not gonna be thinking, I want to jump ship, I want to go elsewhere. Um, so important for retaining people and just making sure that they're having um the I what I nearly went to say the best time. Work isn't always the best time, but you know, having at least um a varied day and one where you actually get to talk to people and um connect with your team because when you do have problems, you really need to know your team very well and how you're gonna get over that challenge, for instance, and move forward as a team. If you don't know each other, that's really difficult to do. Um, so I love that they they do that and connect.
SPEAKER_03:One other thing that I just wanted to mention on like culture is one thing that's great about Redgate is that my team especially kicks me out at five. Especially if we if we've had like a mobbing day, sometimes they'll kick me out at 4:30. We'll all take a break because it's been a tiring day. Um, but I think if I had to give any advice to listeners as well, don't stay beyond your hours. I know a lot of my friends, especially, like um, their hours are like until six and they've stayed at the office until 7:30, and that's just not worth your time, you know? Like the fact that Redgate has prioritized like we value your time outside of work and we want you out by five. You shouldn't be doing anything by five. In fact, my lead software engineer went up to me and said, if you stay past five, that's a red flag for us. We don't want to hire you if you're gonna stay past five. And I was like, This is amazing. I get to have my own work-life balance. So yeah, that's a really, really important thing.
SPEAKER_01:And I love that that is coming from above as well, and that is an example that is set because you some companies they'll have they'll they'll say that and they'll go, Oh, you know, we're really flexible. And then actually it comes down to it and they're not very flexible when you need it. Or the you might have management is working, you know, all hours under the sun, emailing you at strange hours, and you thinking, am I meant to be responding to this at strange hours? It doesn't actually trickle through to the workforce where you think I it's okay, I can have those boundaries. I've set boundaries of work hours and I'm gonna stick to them. And um, it's great that everybody does it. If everybody's on the same page, that's when you feel like this is okay, everyone's doing it, it's fine, and I'm gonna protect and have some boundaries for for um when I'm working and when I'm not working. I love that. I love that they kick you out. Um, what about things that you've learned during your time at Redgate? So, um, what's one thing you've learned during that time and um that you don't think that you would have learned at university? You all covered a few things about difference between university and work. Um, but what's one thing you think stands out uh having been at Redgate via um oh, I'm losing my words, being at Redgate instead of uh being at university. Um blessing, should we go back to Um Yeah?
SPEAKER_00:So um if we're talking like technically, I think that like um software engineering like practices, so having stand-up, retrospectives, sprint planning, like the importance of that kind of stuff. Um within like leading a team or like you know, working within a team. Um I've worked within like in the university societies and like different teams on like making building stuff, etc. like that. Um, and obviously have had issues to the point where you know planning kind of goes wrong, etc. like that. You know, people don't know where everyone is at, you know, who's doing what, etc. And I didn't really fully comprehend like the like strong importance of this kind of stuff until I came to Redgate and have even started talking to people in like societies here in my university that like we need to replicate all of this stuff and just copy and paste it there. And then I would say for like a personal kind of um something that I've learned, you mentioned like imposter syndrome previously, and I had a lot of it going into Redgate, um, thinking university, you know, you're always gonna meet someone who knows something more than you on a specific topic. So um when you come to when I came to Redgate, and then we had like our my first one-to-one with my manager, and I was and they was asked, you know, what do you think you could approve on? I said, Don't do enough tickets, don't ask enough questions, I don't do enough of this. And they were like, Where has this come from?
SPEAKER_01:And it was a little voice that was saying, Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:And then I saw like all of the um feedback from like everyone on my team, and they said, You do, you know, ask tickets, you you know, you do do all of this. I just there was a huge disconnect because I felt like I didn't do enough of any of this stuff. So I think it's definitely I've gained confidence that I knew coming to university I wouldn't have gotten, you know. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that never leaves as well, by the way, that imposter syndrome, as you move through as well, your career. Uh, we had a conversation on here recently about when you move into leadership as well, you have this misconception that you think your team thinks that you know everything and that you should know everything because you're in charge. And actually, that's rot, because usually you have a team who knows everything and you're there to support that team. But you have that moment where you're like, imposter syndrome, I should not be in this position because I don't know everything, and that's because you have a team stuff. So, yeah, it but being in the right environment where you can work through that feeling of imposter syndrome um makes such a difference if you're at the wrong company and you're having those feelings that it's real and everybody's feeling that way. Being at the wrong company, you can just again think, you know what, I'm gonna have to go somewhere else. Um, Karina yourself, is there something that you learned during your time at Red Gate that you think you wouldn't have learned at university?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. Um one of the biggest things I've learned during the internship um is definitely how real teamwork uh works in software engineering. Like it's not just about writing the code on your own, it's about planning features together, reviewing each other's work and communicating closely through pair programming or mobbing. Like everyone has a role and communication is a key to making sure the project moves forward smoothly. Um what's really great that is that these are people you can actually rely on if you need help or feedback, your teammates are there to support you. Unlike at university. Yes. Like at university, like you mostly learn the theory and work on a small uh individual or team projects, and you don't always get to see uh how also a piece of code fits into a larger system or have multiple people coordinate to deliver a complete feature. Like here, I've experienced like the full cycle of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it sounds like they but you some of you have mentioned this as well, that they actually treat you like a colleague instead of an intern. It sounds like if you have questions, they at least respond as if you were a full-time member of the team, um, which would be just uh such a a boost for um well, whether or not you even want to stay in tech is the other thing. I don't know whether you had this experience and then thought actually I tried work in tech and it was not what I thought it was, but at least you you you have that, you've almost cemented that and that you want to remain in tech, hopefully.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I definitely will.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and Kai, what about you? Is there something that you've learned? Um, you mentioned a little bit before about uh like legacy code and all of the things that you've learned, but things that you've learned at Red Gate that you wouldn't have learned at uni.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so actually I have a kind of specific example of I alongside my degree, I am the head of web development and design at my own little sustainability-focused startup. I'm not the founder, but I got recruited in. Um and it is a struggle for sure to balance alongside uni. But one thing that I found whilst working there was I'm the lead. I know everything about the project and what needs to be done, but I am the only person that knows everything. And so if I'm away, the whole project would get blocked. And this ended up being a really recurring problem because I am away a lot because of the demands of my course. And so when I came to Redgate, I really had a mentality of like, I want to see what leads do here. How do they tackle that problem? And the reality is that the team just have a really good understanding of what needs to be done, and they have like a dedicated designer that will communicate with them about what needs to be done, and everyone has that understanding. It's not placed on specifically one person. We've had days where the lead software engineer isn't in, and if there's like a very specific like bug that we need to fix, then maybe that gets blocked for like a day, but it's never been a real issue to the point that I felt um managing it on my own. So I've really taken a lot of leadership skills away from this. While I haven't specifically leaded that much myself, I've led like stand-ups or retros, but yeah, I've really learned how to organize a team based on my time at Redgate.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. You're right. So because some leaders, as well, when uh and it's one of those rookie mistakes, you hold on to everything as well. Because you think, but it's my baby, I know what to do. And you you hold on to it because you do know it best. Of course you know it best. But when you go into a workplace and you're like, yeah, but it's so much easier when everybody else also knows, and then they add their expertise as well. Um, and some teams just really complement each other. Some people are really good at things, and then some people fill in those gaps as well as to the skills that they don't have, and having a team that just really complements each other, and some other people that fill in all the gaps that you don't know, that's when magic happens. Um, so yeah, I love that leadership skills as well from an internship. That's incredible. Um, and what about how this experience has shaped or changed your perspective on the tech industry or future career plans? I hope you all say, yes, I'm going into a career in tech after this experience. Um, blessing, what about you? Has this changed your perspective at all? Definitely still heading down that route.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely still heading down the tech route, but it has changed my perspective. Um, you know, especially going into tech. Tech is quite new. Computer science is quite new. I remember my um secondary school, we were the second cohort to study computer science, GCSE. It's very new. So you go into it thinking of all the technical, I'm gonna code, I'm gonna, you know, debug this, you know, code this, make this. And you forget that context matters. You forget that there's outside teams that you have to talk to before you even do anything. Like the first support tickets that I picked up were very front-end front-end heavy. And before I made it change to the you know, design to the UI, I would have to discuss with actual, you know, the designers to see is this the way it should, you know, be done. Um, having other teams that you need to discuss with, you know, we have IT operations here, um, you know, the designs team, context, you know. Um you have a customer who tells you, you know, this is what we're having, this is an issue that we're having, you know, and then you go and do this and fix this, or you think that you fixed it, but you haven't really consulted them fully on exactly, you know, looking at their logs, you know, what has happened since then, etc. like that. So there's so many out like outside factors that play into how well you are able to do your job. Um, and I think it's yeah, that's that's the shift in perspective that I've had because I didn't really, I thought at first going into it that I could just completely just abstract away from that and just focus on the coding, but I didn't realize like how important all of that other stuff is, and also how good it is to feel included because you're not just working on something that you have no idea what's being used for, you know, you you have to keep at the forefront of your mind the customers and what you're making and why you're making it and what it's going to do, and what are the possible errors that can come from it.
SPEAKER_01:I love that because it uh we have that conversation in our community often as well about the people who say, I make an impact, I make an impact on people's day-to-day, and I have to remember that that um the customer and and how this is gonna affect them, and that I do actually um make an impact in people's lives. And um, it is that misconception in tech that you are going to go into tech, you're gonna work on your own in a basement, in a hoodie, and you're not gonna talk to anybody all day, and that is usually not what your day job is like. Um great that yes, you have to think about all those other teams and you have to have all those soft skills to connect with those other teams to do your part. Um I love that. Uh Karina, still going into tech, I hope. All good with you, and uh, how has this experience shaped or changed your perspective of the tech industry?
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, definitely going into tech. But I realized that I don't want to go straight into a master's degree. Like I've been studying the technical side, I think, for about five years already. Yeah. Like, but after starting this internship, like I realized that I'm learning even more on the job than probably would from studying alone. So yeah, right now I would much rather jump into the industry, but um obviously having a solid foundation is important, but in the real world, um just knowing the theory is not enough. Like you really need that hands-on experience to understand how the things work um in practice and have to solve real problems.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we've had a couple of girls here actually do the same thing. They come work with us for um like a year, and then they thought, you know what, I'm going back to school after they've had a year of experience in in the workplace, um, and then decide what to do from there. But having that one year in in work at least to to um gain that experience, and then what you would gain from that experience when you do go on to study again um would really enrich that when you do decide to go back. But super interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it it's sort of uh like I'm confident now is what I want to do. Yeah, like before the interview is like uh like you have a bunch of papers to write uh lots of exams to do, and in the end you think like was it worth it? Like I for some reason I didn't I didn't really enjoy university that much, like it stressed me out a lot. Like I didn't think like exams or coursework really like reflect my knowledge, uh and it sort of made me think like uh does it like is it worth in the end? Yeah, and I think this summer was quite refreshing to me and gave me motivation to finish this university the final year, write this dissertation and go into industry, yes, yeah, and give me that confidence boost that this is where you want to be and you can do that, and falling into the right internship to give you that confidence boost to really support you for your your last year of uni um as well.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Um, and Kaya, how has um this experience shaped your perspective of tech? Staying in tech.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. I'm definitely staying in tech, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I think if anything, this experience has taught me that I have a new priority in searching for jobs and where I'm gonna go in my career, and it's quality of life. Like culture comes into that, the fact that like I need a place that gives me a work-life balance, I need fun coworkers, I need like I need something that will make sure that I I I've learned that I don't necessarily feel fulfilled by like the topic area I want to go most into. Like I love computer vision and it's still very much a path that I want to pursue, but I feel fulfilled working here as well. So I found that actually one of my priorities needs to be quality of life rather than do something that seems the coolest, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yes, absolutely. And I actually read a few surveys on that recently about graduates are looking for um things like diversity and culture and above salary, because exactly for that. And normally you would go out and you think, well, who's paying the highest salary? And then you'd get in and you think, actually, my day job is dreadful and I'm not going to stay here very long. But those that really create that culture, and it's not something that's done overnight either. And we find this a lot with our corporate ambassadors, they work all year round to build that culture where people come in, they feel that they are fulfilled and they want to stay and they want to move up through the ranks and stay with that company. And there are some brilliant companies out there that are doing it. Um, and then it does make us laugh when the ones that do come to us and say, you know what, we can't increase our pipeline or we don't know why or why this is happening. And you look ask them what they're doing, and it's usually not much. Or they think they can post one job on a um a diversity-focused job board and they're going to attract the right people and problem solved. And that is not usually the case, it is actually built day in, day out at that company, and that company is um trying incredibly hard to create that culture. So I love that that you um that that has really become important to you because you've noticed that they get it right at Redgate. I love that. Um, we're on our final question, ladies. So I'm gonna ask you quick advice. What is your one piece of advice that you would give to other students considering a tech internship? What would it be? Hopefully, go ahead and do it. Um what advice would you would you give? Um, blessing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so definitely, like you said, go ahead and do it. Can like apply. Lots of people they fall into this trap of like fearing to apply because they don't think they'll get in. Especially like I don't go to a um target university for most companies, but I've been able to, I think it's just because of I think they see the confidence that you have in it being able to apply, even knowing that these companies don't see you as a target university. And you know, if you don't get in, that's experience that you've learned. I remember my first year. Usually you don't get internships for your first year, they don't consider you. I still decided to apply. I applied to like 200 internships, got rejection from 200 internships. Actually, some of them didn't respond to me. So actually, who knows? But the experience that I was able to just gain from applying in seeing, you know, the type of companies that I would want to work for, the, you know, type of companies that um are in different types of industries that I would be interested in, you know, um the type of person I am as well in interviews as well, um, all these different skills, you know, I learned from just applying. So I think if you have the ability to, I do think applying to internships, you know, getting your CV done, you know, redoing your CV every single time, you know, adding new things to it, um, personal projects, joining stuff in university, um, will help you and get to the point where you'll get an internship and you'll be able to gain so much experience, not just technically, but soft skills. And then it's also good to have like um just a company that like just the experience of you know being in a professional setting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I you're so right, the experience even of applying. For something and interviewing. Oh my gosh, if I could see me after I just graduated going for my first interview, you need practice. You start practice. I need learn from everything. Um, I love that. Um, Karina, yourself, advice for anyone else thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, I would advise um no doubt yourself. Like even if you get rejected a bunch of times, you will learn something from the process. And sometimes the role you least expect to get is the one that changes everything. And once you are in the internship, it's really important to focus on the one or two key areas and like really prioritize them because if it goes to vacuum, it's like easy to feel like you're not achieving much in like in such a short period. Obviously, it depends on the internship itself, but it's what I've experienced. So yeah, talking with your manager about what to focus on helps a lot and make sure like you're actually making progress and getting the most out of the experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, and yeah, and learning as well to communicate with your own manager. Um, I've noticed as well, being in work, you have to learn to um, as you move through leadership, you have to learn to manage upwards and downwards. And that is quite a skill as well, how to communicate with all levels, um, something that you don't learn at university. So, even learning to communicate with your manager, being clear with them, and also asking them to be clearer with you if they're not clear as well. Um, yeah, I love that. Um, Kai, final advice. What would you tell other students thinking about it?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, I'll echo a bit of what Blessing said. Uh, go into it with confidence, go into the application with confidence. But once you're past the application with confidence, keep that confidence going. Because um, especially at the interview level, um, I remember the about like a week before I had my Redgate technical interview, I was preparing for this other interview that I was like, I really wanted that role. I was doing so much planning, maybe not the most effective planning, but I did a lot of planning for it. Get into the interview, lost all my confidence. I was telling my friends at the time, like, oh, I don't have the confidence, I don't feel like I can get this role. And I basically spoke it into existence because I failed at like the first basic question. And I was like, I know this. It's just that my mind is blanking because I've put so much pressure on myself. Um, and actually having that first experience of failure and like realizing like maybe I shouldn't be putting this much pressure on myself was what allowed me to be so chill and relaxed with my redgate interview a week later. So yeah, definitely keep your confidence going. Um what like what the place that you end up choosing um could end up being the best for you, really. And also to kind of echo from that as well, like apply. Even if you feel like you don't have the experience for the role, at least getting to the interview stage and getting the experience through of get going through interviews, um, even if they end up rejecting you, like that bad experience might be what pushes you through to get the good experience in your next application.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, definitely. And your thumb out apply as well, even if you're not feeling that confident, because I had one um girl, a community member, tell me uh she went for an interview. She knew there was going to be a technical test and it was C. And she said, I didn't know C. So I spent a fortnight learning. And when I went for the test, she said, I did okay, but not fantastic. But they still called me up to say, we were so impressed that you learnt that in a fortnight. We could throw anything at you and you would learn it. And they they still hired her because she ticked all the other boxes and they said, if you're that person that's just willing to be a sponge and suck up new things, we still want to hire you. So sometimes you don't know unless you go for it what that employer is like. If there's someone that's just thinks can see good talent and they're just going to grab hold of you and nurture you, um, then fantastic, apply. And they're the companies that you want to work for, the ones that grab hold of good talent and nurture it through uh to to hopefully through to leadership as well. Um, but I love that. Just apply, just do it is usually the best advice. Um ladies, we are already out of time. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with all of you about your experience. Um, uh interning at Redgate this summer. So thank you so much. Blessing Karina and Kai, thank you so much for joining me today. It has been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. And for everybody listening, as always, thank you for joining us. And we hope to see you again next time.
