Tekniksprånget is a groundbreaking, four month internship for graduated Natural Science or Technical high school students between the ages 18-20. The project is run by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and more than hundred companies participate, located all across Sweden. The purpose is to inspire young people to choose higher technical education by giving the opportunity to try the engineering profession. While there are no expectations on the prior technical knowledge of the intern, there are expectations on a will to learn and develop.
During the past four months, I have had the opportunity to do an internship through Tekniksprånget at Subtonomy. As a part of the development team, my tasks have consisted of debugging and adding new features to Subtonomy’s applications, always in regard to what the customers find most important at the moment.
One of the most valuable experiences I have gained from my internship is the understanding of how to work as a part of a development team. This includes how to structure your work, as well as how to communicate what you are doing to everybody else.
The pictures show what a typical stand-up meeting looks like at Subtonomy. This is a five to ten minutes meeting where everyone in the team briefly explains where they are in the process of their specific tasks. This is also an opportunity to bring up any problem that might have occurred or if there is something else that would be beneficial for the others in the team to know.
Although details are never discussed at the stand-up meetings, the short meetings play an important part in creating and maintaining the transparency at the company. They also bring context to where your own contributions fit into the bigger picture.
At Subtonomy, we divide the work into so-called sprints in order to have tight follow-ups and make sure everything is progressing forward. A sprint is a three weeks period that often includes a few bigger and some smaller tasks that need to be resolved. At the end of each sprint, we hold demo meetings with the purpose of demonstrating to the other teams at Subtonomy what we, in the development team, have been working on.
The pictures show one of my demos. Our customers had asked for more data to be available in their applications, and a higher security level when exporting data.
At Subtonomy, we work as a tight team in an inspiring and open environment. All questions are encouraged, and there is always someone who will help you when needed. The big variety of challenges you encounter ensures that there will always be new and interesting things to learn.
My internship at Subtonomy has been incredibly rewarding. Not only have I learnt a lot, but I have also come to realize how much I enjoyed the process of learning and coding. After New Year, I will start my permanent position as a part-time employee at Subtonomy alongside with my higher education in the field. I am really looking forward to the new challenges and experiences this will bring.
// Engla Marmefeldt