Friends on campus to colleagues at Kodez. Jeewantha & Sahanyas’ Internship journey

Jeewantha Hiddalarachchi and Sahanya Ranaweera are friends and batchmates at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT). They both joined Kodez in November 2021 and has been delivering amazing results on the Kodez Cybersecurity space they are currently working on. They took some time out of their schedule to talk about their journey so far as Software Engineer Trainees at Kodez.

Let’s talk about how you got to know about Kodez and how was the interview process?

We both heard about the Kodez opportunity from our SLIIT career guidance unit. The entire recruitment process was smooth. We had a very friendly and less complicated interview process, so it wasn’t nerve-wracking to sit through the interview.  When we both got selected, we were delighted and was very excited to start work at Kodez knowing we weren’t going into this new challenge completely alone.

Overall, the interview process from start to finish was a quick and smooth one. Now looking back, we are thankful for getting the opportunity to grow, identify our strengths and actively contribute to the industry projects through this internship training.

Describe the first couple of days at Kodez?

When we first started working, we were quite excited about the coming six months that we would be spending with Kodez. Our colleagues and senior consultants were very friendly, and they warmly welcomed us to the team. Once we got through the usual new account setup task and laptop login issues, we were quickly allocated to our projects.

We both got to work on the same project. A new innovative project.  We were both assigned to the same project and since it was a new project, we were both anxious and excited at the same time as it will be a new experience for both of us to polish our technical skills, gather more knowledge and develop valuable soft skills.

Let’s talk about this project you two were assigned to. Can you tell us more about it?

Well…. Not too much. It’s a secret project we are still working . But what we can tell is how we were involved in the project.

One of the major benefits we both had was we were assigned to this project at its initial stage which means we got to be involved in the project from the beginning  to the end, which we think is such an amazing achievement.  Apart from that, it is a Cybersecurity project and a subject we both are very enthusiastic about.

We both started by contributing to the initial product research. And as we go, we got the opportunity to learn about cloud platforms, user authentication services and many other subcategories  etc. Most of the challenges we faced during our internships were solely technical where we would get stuck on some errors in our development. However, we were able to clarify those easily by consulting our supervisor and other senior consultants at Kodez. The guidance we received from them was on point and extremely valuable not only for the task in hand but for any future projects we will be taking on in our careers.

Looking back what are your thought on your journey so far as a Kodez Software Engineer Trainees?

We have grown professionally, and by giving us the autonomy to work on these real industry projects we are now more confident in taking on more challenges and troubleshooting. During tour internship Kodez natured us to enhance our technical knowledge and encouraged us to improve our professional qualifications by offering us paid subscriptions for various online certifications and courses.

Also, we got to try out some software that is commonly used in the industry such as Jira, Confluence, Azure Services so that we can grasp those concepts and prepare ourselves for entering the professional world.

Kodez team has always been supportive and creating an empowering environment for us to work in. Once we both needed some new paid services or platforms subscriptions for development, Kodez made a quick actions to offer us those without any hesitation.

At Kodez we also run  monthly tech talks where many of  the Kodez consultants talk about emerging technologies , out of box advance solutions and hybrid models which are great resource for us to be on top of the new technologies and best practices in the industry

You both are still undergraduates. So how do you manage to balance working for an organization with an international clientele and your demanding academic schedule ?

Kodez is a remote-first organization. So being able to work from home and maintain a flexible work schedule, especially as university students trying to balance our career and academic life has been such a great advantage  . we have been able to adjust our workday to match our academic timetable without missing out on any of our academic activities or fall behind at work.

Kodez has always supported and encouraged our academic activities. For example, when we had exams on campus our work and task were allocated keeping that in mind and we were able to completely focus on our exams. We even went to our consultants some times to ask about our uni projects & exam issues we faced at uni. They are so understanding and accommodating and take their time to clarify any doubts we have. We have learned a lot about the industry & career expectation from them in the past couple of months.

Finally, do you have anything to tell anyone looking for an internship or thinking of applying for a internship at Kodez in the future?

Not to be biased but we definitely think Kodez is great option for anyone looking for an internship who wants real project experience to kick start their career in the industry. If you are a knowledge seeker or a better problem solver, you can be a part of the Kodez Family. If you are passionate about working with new technologies and gaining new experiences, Kodez is the right place for you...  

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