Internship Summary
Continuing from “Don’t Call Me a Programmer, I’m a Front-End Development Engineer” – so I went to Wacai for my internship, fast forward through ten thousand words, and I successfully converted to a full-time position, then returned to school to write my graduation thesis.
Continuing from “Don’t Call Me a Programmer, I’m a Front-End Development Engineer” – so I went to Wacai for my internship, fast forward through ten thousand words, and I successfully converted to a full-time position, then returned to school to write my graduation thesis.
The Ten Thousand Words (Partial Content)
The Job Hunt
What a correct decision it was – everything went smoothly and I got an offer. While my friends were still scrambling, I had already decided to stay at Wacai (or rather, Wacai decided to keep me). The compensation was satisfying, the team was super nice, so I didn’t bother looking at other companies.
Of course, before getting my full-time offer, I did try a few places. I took many written tests, but the only one that led to an interview was Alibaba. Then, you know how it goes – Alibaba’s intern babies all “embraced change” (a euphemism for being let go), and then they came out and embraced us, successfully causing one front-end intern at our company to also “embrace change.” During the Alibaba interview, they kept asking about front-end engineering topics, which I had no exposure to at the time – I couldn’t answer a single question. I was basically just there as a spectator.
I got internal referrals that led to interviews at two companies: Mogujie and 51 Credit Card Manager. At Mogujie, I smoothly made it to the second round. They asked me about my career plans, so I blabbered on about all the things I wanted to learn but didn’t have time for. The interviewer then asked, “Do you work overtime?” I said not really. “Then why don’t you study at home?” And that was the end of that. Actually, I did study at home – I was just trying to say I was busy learning other things. My bad. On the way downstairs, they asked when I could start the internship. Like an idiot, I said, “Next June, I guess.” And that really was the end of it.
The 51 Credit Card experience was a total mess. They notified me at 10 AM to come for an interview, then didn’t meet me until 10:30 in a rush. They chatted with me about my feelings… and then I realized this person was from HR. So there was no technical interview? They also asked when I could start the internship. Being an idiot again: “Next June, I guess.” I was mainly waiting for Wacai, but unfortunately Wacai’s conversion interview came too late!
The conversion interview at Wacai was basically just a formality. The CTO interviewed me. He saw “Linux” on my resume, then grabbed a Mac and asked me some common commands – like ps, vi, and grep. He asked if I used Linux. I said yes. “Don’t all front-end devs use Macs?” Inner monologue: “I’m not just any dev!” (I just couldn’t afford one.) By the way, I’m currently the only front-end engineer at my company without a Mac. Let that sink in.
Internship Experience
When I first arrived at Wacai, everything was so new. I was pretty clueless – git, svn, IDEA, VMs, Avalon, MVVM, Gulp, Webpack – I’d never heard of any of them, haha! But there was a senior front-end developer sitting next to me who was always happy to help, and I could ask him questions anytime. My progress was very noticeable.
During the internship, I worked on many interesting projects. They weren’t big, but they were quite fulfilling. One was an activity page generation management system for a “Celebrity Show” project, which now has some new requirements and is being developed into a system for publishing various similar activities. There was also a grueling Singles’ Day (Double 11) main event page that nearly worked me to death. It wasn’t particularly difficult, but all the other developers were in Shanghai while I, the sole front-end person, was in Hangzhou. Communication was extremely inconvenient, many things were completely new to me, and I had to ensure compatibility across all our company’s apps. But I got it done, and it was actually pretty fun.
When my first internship paycheck hit my account, I was so excited. I thought, “I can finally support myself!” I even told my mom she didn’t need to send me living expenses anymore. And from now on, I’ll be putting down roots in Hangzhou – I absolutely love this city.
Returning to School
I had been secretly away from school for my internship for four and a half months. At the four-month mark, my advisor apparently caught on. The first thing he said on the phone was: “So, how’s the internship going?” It seemed like it was time to go back. So I took a very long leave and returned to school to start working on my “outstanding graduation thesis” – just kidding!
Internship Summary
