What to expect from your first weeks as a software development intern

Albina Starykova — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:37:00 +0000

It has been a few weeks since I started my first Outreachy internship at Wagtail, and here is an update on my experience so far.

The internship has been a whirlwind of learning opportunities and challenges that is very well organised - by both Outreachy and Wagtail.

Outreachy provides structure to the internship and supports interns via regular online meetups, where interns, mentors, and organisers share experiences and ideas on topics such as remote work, tech conferences, and job opportunities.

Wagtail ensures project-related support, including:

initial onboarding sessions to introduce me to the code base
daily stand-ups to track progress using a Kanban-style project board
regular mentoring sessions to provide guidance and answer questions
and even weekly retrospective - where we look back, reflect, and discover ways to improve future behavior and outcomes

Though feeling enthusiastic after being selected as an intern, I quickly realised that the internship will be much more challenging than the contribution period. The problems I’m dealing with are larger and more complex, and usually require a lot of research and debugging.

Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to learn and work with so many diverse things, from the basics of Django and Python to open-source licenses, precision and recall and assessing testing tools, web components and shadow DOM, RTL language support, axe core. It is certainly not a full list and doesn't include web accessibility, basic JS, CSS & HTML which are prerequisites for this internship. It's an ocean of new information, and as soon as I feel comfortable with one topic, there are more waiting for me.

It's natural to feel overwhelmed and doubt yourself, but I've been lucky to have supportive and encouraging mentors who are guiding me through the process and providing help when I need it. On top of that, I'm doing a lot of research on my own using resources like StackOverflow and ChatGPT. While StackOverflow provides answers verified by the community, ChatGPT can provide more tailored explanations, though it's important to use it with caution as it may not always know the correct answer.

One of the biggest struggles during the first few weeks in a new role is accepting that the process of learning and growing involves asking lots of "silly" questions and making mistakes. It's normal to want to start adding value from day one, but it takes time to get up to speed.

If I could go back in time and give myself (and all future interns) some advice, it would be the following:

✅ Be prepared for impostor syndrome and be kind to yourself. Remember that mistakes and failures are inevitable, and they're actually a crucial part of the learning process
✅ Be curious and ask questions. You have so much to learn!
✅ Experiment with code, try new things, and see what works. Code is all about experimenting and problem-solving
✅ Don't give up: software development can be challenging, and you'll likely face some setbacks along the way. Don't let that discourage you. Keep pushing through and don't give up, even when things get tough

Despite the challenges, I'm so grateful for this opportunity to expand my skills and knowledge. I've already learned so much, and I'm excited to see where this internship takes me next. I know there will be more challenges ahead, but with the support of my mentors and my own determination, I'm confident that I can overcome them and continue to grow as a developer🚀

Stay tuned for more updates!

Connect with me on Twitter or GitHub 🤍

How I got my first internship as a junior front-end developer

Albina Starykova — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:30:02 +0000

Hi everyone! I’m Albina, a junior front-end developer, and I was selected as an Outreachy intern at Wagtail for the December 2022 - March 2023 cohort 🚀
I will be developing tools to help Wagtail editors create accessible content. I would like to tell you about my journey to open source contribution and my first commercial experience in software development.

What is Outreachy?

I learned about Outreachy while transitioning into software development earlier this year. Outreachy is a program that supports diversity in open source and open science by offering paid, remote internships for people who are underrepresented in tech, such as women, people of color, and genderqueer individuals. Outreachy projects may include programming, research, UI/UX, data science, and more.

To be considered for an internship, applicants must go through two rounds of selection:

The initial application, which consists of essay-type questions on diversity in tech and the applicant's commitment to the program.
The contribution period and final application, which require the applicant to make contributions to their chosen open-source community and project.

What is Wagtail?

For the contribution period I chose Wagtail. It is a popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) written in Python. Wagtail CMS is used by many well-known companies and organizations, including NASA, Google, Mozilla, MIT, Salesforce, and BMW. One of the things that set Wagtail apart is its strong and very friendly community.

Initially, I considered Wagtail because it matched my skill set and because the product is impressive. However, what really stood out to me was the level of communication and support from the community and mentors. They provided helpful guides for new open-source contributors, gave fast and extensive feedback on all issues, and appreciated even small contributions. This made the whole experience very encouraging and enjoyable.

What to expect from the contribution stage?

First of all, it is pretty competitive. The numbers speak for themselves: out of 4440 initial Outreachy applications 1378 passed the first round, and only 64 interns were accepted. At the same time, only 7 people submitted the final application for the project I was applying for. So those who make meaningful contributions and spend time crafting the final application have pretty good chances.

Second and most important, the contribution stage provides valuable learning opportunities and can be a lot of fun. During this stage, I learned about the culture of open source, practiced communication, and improved my technical skills.

The overall process for me included the following:

Reading all the related project documentation
Setting up Wagtail’s development environment
Assessing the code base
Looking for issues I was comfortable fixing - could be anything from fixing a typo or a bug to small enhancements
Fixing those issues, getting CI checks and/or mentor’s feedback. Fixing them again if needed😅
Communicating a lot with the community and mentors throughout the process

I can’t recommend enough participating in the Outreachy program and Wagtail community specifically to everyone who wants to boost their learning curve and get industry experience on a real project.

Web accessibility, and why it is important

Web accessibility (a11y) refers to the practice of designing and developing websites and technologies so that people with disabilities and other limitations can use them with as few barriers as possible. This includes people with permanent disabilities, such as those who are deaf, as well as people with temporary limitations, such as those with a broken arm or those living in an area with slow internet.

The Wagtail team is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive community and project for everyone. And I personally believe it’s our responsibility as developers - we never know what abilities we may have in the future, and 1bn people are disabled today already. Naturally, I chose an a11y-related project.

My contributions to Wagtail's accessibility

During the contribution stage, I made 8 Pull Requests to Wagtail, 2 of which were related to Windows high contrast mode (WHCM). WHCM is an accessibility feature that is designed for people with low vision. It changes the appearance of a website by replacing the colors of different elements, such as buttons, text, or backgrounds, to make them more readable. Some websites have poor color combinations that can be difficult to read, even for people with unimpaired vision. High contrast mode helps by using strongly contrasting colors that are easy to read for everyone.
Bonus: dark high contrast themes can look very cool and clean.

I worked on improving the design of several Wagtail UI elements in WHCM, such as buttons and tag fields. Through this work, I:

✅ Learned about the flexibility and beauty of using CSS system colors. Using them, the whole design can be created without any hard-coded color values, and users can get a palette that closely mimics their experience with native apps in their operating system
✅ Tested my solutions using Assistiv Labs test suite and Google Chrome dev tools
✅ Polished my SASS/SCSS skills

That is how seemingly small contributions helped me to expand my knowledge, improve front-end skills, and get hooked on the a11y topic in general.

Now I continue to work on making Wagtail itself and Wagtail-based sites more accessible as an intern.