My Internship Experience at Mavericks

Going Beyond Dev Work

I’d say that my internship was a very fruitful experience. I’ve improved a lot, not just in terms of my technical skills but also "non-dev" skills. My Internship at Mavericks is quite different from others I’ve heard about from my friends.

One of the biggest differences is that we are exposed to things beyond just development tasks. We work on non-dev stuff like Business Analysis (BA) and UI/UX. Since I wasn’t familiar with these areas at the start, I’ll admit it was a struggle at the start. However, the people in Mavericks are very helpful. They were always willing to guide me and provide help whenever I asked, and they were patient while I was figuring things out.

Understanding the "Why" Behind the Code

Mavericks puts a lot of weight on being proactive and understanding "business value." This was a new concept for me. Here, everything we do needs a clear reason behind it. You can’t just make a technical choice or a design decision because it’s "easier”, you need to have thoughts to back it up. The goal is to be able to look at the products we make and be proud of the quality and the thought process behind them.

To get things done efficiently, you must be proactive. This means seeking out new ways to improve and reaching out for clarity the moment you get stuck, rather than just waiting for someone to check on you.

The Freedom to Try New Things

One of the most important lessons my colleagues taught me is that an internship is the best place to make mistakes. As an intern, you have the privilege to try things out and step out of your comfort zone. Since everyone knows you are there to learn, it is the perfect time to throw out suggestions or try a new approach. You won’t know if a new idea is better until you try it, and Mavericks really encourages that kind of experimental mindset. But of course, those ideas still need to have solid thoughts behind them to back them up and make sense.  The same culture applies to full timers too!

A Culture that Actually Supports You

The best part about Mavericks is the culture of support. People here give you the opportunity to try or learn something new if you just ask for it. For example, I wanted to try setting up a new chat feature for one of our projects. Even though I was an intern, I requested to handle it, and they gave me the chance to do it. I ended up learning quite a bit from that one task. Mavericks often asks if there’s anything specific we want to learn or improve on, and they try to provide those opportunities.

Why I'm Staying on Full-time

I originally chose Mavericks for my internship because I was intrigued by the role. I wanted to work as a software engineer, and the full-stack dev role gave me a good glimpse of what it’s like to work on both frontend and backend projects.

The reason I decided to stay on as a full-timer is simple. I feel like there’s still so much more to learn here. Mavericks provides a good environment for me to keep improving both my tech and non-tech skills, and I feel like I haven't exhausted the growth opportunities Mavericks has to offer yet.  And it is a great feeling seeing myself improve each and every day.