Each summer, we have the privilege of welcoming talented software engineering interns to our team. This year, we are excited to introduce Caleb Hite and Ryan Miller.
Caleb is a student at the University of Kansas studying computer science. This summer, he worked with our data integrations team. Ryan is a student at the University of Wisconsin studying to earn his computer science certificate. He worked with our mobile app team this summer.
We had a chance to chat with them about what they've worked on and all they’ve learned along the way.
Caleb: I have been working on a project to help process customer data into our database.
Ryan: I’ve been primarily knocking out bugs and helping the mobile team clear out their backlog. Some of the things I’ve worked on include ensuring UI consistency across all platforms, updating design and color schemes within apps, and troubleshooting media and content issues.
Caleb: I learned that FanThreeSixty has partnerships with a lot of organizations and events that I attend myself, which has made working here very exciting.
Ryan: Programming isn’t even half the job of a software engineer at FanThreeSixty. A larger part of what they do is collaborating with others who worked on the code previously, knowing how all of the various tools work, and being able to find the part of the code where something is handled. I only spend about 30% of my time writing code.
Caleb: I have learned to use enterprise-level tools that aren't taught in school. Additionally, I have learned how to collaborate at the scale of a company and how to work off of feedback to improve my work.
Ryan: A huge part of being a software engineer is troubleshooting. If your environment breaks and you can’t fix it, or if you change something and it breaks another function of the code, it can take hours to fix an issue that you created in two seconds. Because of that, it’s important to pay attention to how everything is put together when you modify things so you know where to look when they break.
Caleb: This experience has made me work in areas I hadn't considered working in before, which has helped me figure out what I want to do after college.
Ryan: Getting a glimpse into how a tech company operates and what they rely on to stay productive has been really useful. Knowing what developers need in order to complete their work helps me understand the demands companies have when trying to create their products. Additionally, exposure to commonly used tools will serve me well in the industry.
Caleb: I was accepted into my university's entrepreneurship catalyst program, and I am taking this opportunity to build a startup with one of my friends. We are building a social media app on a blockchain. I will continue to build this project in the fall and I'm entering the project into the World Computer Hacker League hackathon. Hopefully, if we win, we will use the prize money to fund the startup.
Ryan: I designed my own planner app to consolidate the amount of services I use to stay organized. It allowed me to create to-do lists, routines, and my budget, so that I could access them all in one spot rather than through three different apps. I was especially proud of the routines section. I didn’t like writing down every task for my morning routine, since some (like brushing my teeth) were daily, while others (like trimming my beard) were every 2–3 days. The routines section would only show tasks that needed to get done on that day, which was a small change but a huge quality-of-life improvement. Rather than having to stop and think, “do I have to do that today?” my past self has already planned that out and I just need to follow the tasks that appear in the app.