Software Developer Internship at Xero - My Summer of Tech

Hey I am Monique Warrington. I have just completed my second year studying software development at Whitecliffe College of Technology and Innovation in Auckland! In 2019, I got a software developer internship at Xero through Summer of Tech.How did you hear about Summer of Tech/Biz? I heard about Summer of Tech through word of mouth at a tech event I was at, and someone mentioned they had completed an internship through SOT and told me all about the programWhat was the process like getting your job? The process for getting my job was relatively straight forward. I applied, met with someone at Meet and Greet who shortlisted me, got an email with a link to a hackerrank challenge, and then had an interview at the speed interviews. After speed interviews they invited a group of us in for a coffee and a office tour, but apparently this wasn't part of the interview process. After that I received an offer on offers day :)What’s the coolest thing you’ve done so far in your internship? Xero gave me the opportunity to help be a part of an event where we showed 160 year 9 women the amazing world of programming. We taught them how to program using scratch, how to be more confident, and about some amazing wahine who are already doing great things in the world of tech. It was an amazing experience, and I hope we inspired some of them to consider a career in technology in the future!What’s something that has surprised you about your job?  Just how much I have been a part of the team and the development process! I have been included in the entire software development process, design decisions and I even have an API endpoint and UI that I built in production! I really feel like a valued member of the team.What's something you've learned whilst in your internship? Before this internship I had no clue what docker or script writing was. I have just finished writing a script to automate hosting our dev environments in docker containers. It was a massive learning curve, but something I am pretty proud of!What are your plans for the future e.g career or uni wise? After my software developer internship, I will be returning to uni this year to finish my degree, before joining Xero's grad program in 2021!For more student stories and other helpful resources, visit our student resources page.