In January 2020, I was in my third year at the Sri Lanka Insitute of Information Technology (SLIIT). We were required to find an Internship at that time. SLIIT offers an Industry Placement module where we must work for six months before graduating.
Process
I started applying to companies. I had 5–6 interviews with different companies. This process began in January 2020, and I applied to Beta Launch in June. I was selected as an Intern Software Engineer after passing two rounds of interviews. Initially, I was a bit nervous as I only had project-level experience in technologies such as Java and Javascript.
First Work
First, I was allocated to a web application project. At the start, they mentioned going through Tailwind CSS. About Tailwindcss, you can check my previous article here.
Deshan was the first Senior person who helped me to learn fundamental things. After a month, I was moved to another project called TAKSO. I worked for almost one year and six months in TAKSO. Takso is a web application for Australian Culture Services. This application was engineered using ReactJS, Redux, Semantic UI for the frontend, NodeJS for the backend, and SQL for the database.
Guidance At Beta Launch
Tiran and Kavindu are the seniors who helped me learn about the fundamentals of Javascript. From their guidance, I was able to understand JS and ReactJS. Eventually, I started to perform well and was put on the PB (product backlog) board. Since then, I have been working with PB, handling urgent tickets and client requests. We run a 1-week sprint according to our team members. Currently, it is a two weeks sprint. After eight months of Internship, in April 2021, I was promoted to Associate Software Engineer.
From this point, I learned about Jira and how we should communicate with Clients and their expectations, mainly time management. Time management is the key in the IT industry. We used the Fibonacci sequence to estimate tickets. According to the estimate, we have to finish the particular sprint and merge it into the stage.
The stage is where the test cases are passed and sent to the QA to test whether the requirement is satisfied. Once all the tickets are done, they will be sent to production. Meanwhile, I started learning about AWS. Beta Launch provided me with a Udemy course on AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification.
Agile
The Agile methodology is a way to manage a project by breaking it up into several phases. We have daily Standups where the objective is to review essential tasks that have been completed and are currently being worked on or are about to be initiated. When we face a blocker while working on a task, we let our colleagues know about them and seek their help. We have monthly retrospective meetings, product backlog, backlog grooming and sprint reviews.
Culture
Culture is an essential factor that every IT professional considers. We have a great culture here, and everyone is glad to help you. We have monthly team meetings to maintain a strong team.
October and November were months that I had my final year research project presentation and research paper release. I had to work at night to balance my work and studies. With the help of my lecturers, I was able to publish the research paper in IEEE.
I also want to thank Team Takso for their understanding and willingness to let me take a few days off to prepare and work on my research paper. In our one-on-one meeting, Janaka mentioned the idea of tracking the bat’s speed in Cricket. It was the first spark that helped me conduct research on the Cricket shot classification mobile app. The idea is to find the type and accuracy of the shot based on the user’s input.
You can check the research paper here.
Our project was selected for NBQSA by SLIIT. Then we participated in the competition. Unfortunately, we were not chosen for the top positions to proceed further, but we did our best.
Conclusion
Beta Launch has supported me with both my work and studies since 2020. My career in the industry began with Beta Launch. I worked on the research paper, did all the assignments and exams and graduated while working at Beta Launch. I want to express my gratitude to all of my coworkers for their support so far.
Thank you 🙂
