Details

Dathena Internship Experience


Dathena was my first official internship experience. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity and experience. Throughout my internship, I was involved in developing and maintaining a few projects and applications. The main part of my work is working on the main software product, which involves maintaining the product itself (squashing bugs) and adding several new features such as generating audit reports and diagnostics page. Apart from this project, another project was to develop scripts (sql and bash) to generate dummy data for a product showcase. Lastly, I was also involved in a project where the product was to connect and crawl through various microsoft files (word, excel, powerpoint, etc) and look through the file's metadata.

Through this experience, I was exposed to multiple new technologies and project management workflows. As the company uses SCRUM to manage their projects, it was a good insight into how project management actually is in real life. This was also my first time being exposed to such a huge code base with multiple dependencies which was rather confusing and frustrating at the start especially since we have to run multiple stuff in order to test just one function. However, it is inevitable as it is vital to do so to ensure that I do not push buggy codes and affect anyone else.

Here is a list of tools, software and skills that I was exposed to during this internship:

  • Linting with Python (Flake8)
  • Using pipenv instead of pip
  • Unit testing (for Python)
  • HDFS and HBase with Python
  • Docker (especially on Docker Swarm)
  • Learnt more on PostgreSQL
  • Learnt more on Linux commands
  • Learnt more on Bash commands and syntax
  • Learnt a little on Networking (due to VPN)
  • Better Git management (within an organisation)
  • Writing Technical Design Documents
  • Kibana
  • JIRA & Bitbucket
  • Postman

Personal Reflections

In addition to this being my first internship, it was also my first Work-From-Home (WFH) internship. It was rather sad as I was really looking to working together with the team physically in the office. I visited the office previously for the interview and in my mind, it seemed like a good environment to collaborate and work together with my colleagues. Working from home, especially during an internship felt really distant, I did not know anyone and I couldn't really walk up to someone to ask for help (had to receive it virtually). I always feel that face to face fosters better collaborations and efficiency overall. However, working from home also comes with its upsides - being able to wake up later. With lesser direct guidance, I was left to be more independent, which was something I am proud of as my direct supervisor, Ryan commented on it upon my departure.

Despite not being able to meet physically, it was still vital to effectively communicate. The weekly sprint planning meetings and daily standups (meetings) helped in ensuring that I (and the team) am certain of our tasks and any issues we faced were properly communicated. I also had to communicate with other colleagues and superiors such as the CTO when conducting our weekly synch-ups, showcasing the work that I have done. Other parties that I have communicated with are my other superior, Matthieu (the one in charge of the main product), frontend team and the AI team based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

As the company wasn't very big, every change I made to the code goes directly into production and this gave me a sense of belonging and reassurance that my efforts goes to help the business. This motivates me to finish my work with the utmost quality. I am hopeful for Dathena and their products and I wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

Lastly, a shoutout to the team that I worked with and my interviewer, Thomas who gave me this wonderful opportunity which I am once again, very grateful for.