A Word of Thanks to Gleam.io
Published on 12 Jan 2018
by Alexander Garber
I wish to thank Gleam.io for the invaluable experience of working as a junior software development intern from August 2017 until January 2018.
When I started my internship, I had about seven months' self-study of Ruby and Rails, with a smattering of HTML, CSS, Github, etc. During my time at Gleam.io, I got to learn the ins-and-outs of a large commercial codebase, and
saw first hand how an excellent product is built, maintained, and supported with intelligence and empathy.
I navigated the choppy waters of dependencies and got a complex commercial application running on my local Linux machine. (I also updated the README to make life a lot easier for the next person)
I got a bunch of pull requests approved.
I made mistakes, and learned from them, in using Github.
I kept on using Rubymine until it made sense to me.
I spent countless hours reading the code, hunting for clues; Google and Stack Overflow were my constant companions.
I wrote tests that failed, then passed, then failed again, then passed.
I went mountaineering on a learning curve of Ruby and Rails, especially Rails; now I understand essentially how it fits together and is used to build websites that serve the needs of customers.
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| A fair representation of the ardour and the rigour of studying Rails. |
I got to pair program a bit and work remotely a lot — I enjoy them both very much.
In short, I was given every opportunity to learn from seasoned veterans, the value of which is beyond measure, and was treated with tolerance and respect by everyone on the team.
Chief amongst the myriad things I am grateful for is the self-confidence I am imbued with. When I started my journey into software development, self-belief was one part reason, two parts faith. But now I can say that
someone saw the potential in me, even though I didn't have the requisite skills and knowledge for the role, and gave me a chance to fail and succeed, fall down and pick myself up.
The guys at Gleam.io didn't have to take me on, but they did; they didn't have to invest in me, but they did. They allowed me to see how I measure up against people who have been working with software for half my lifetime, and
what I saw (although daunting at times) gives me great hope for my own prospects as developer.
Now that I have been part of a commercial development environment, I know for a fact that I can become a genuinely good developer with a reasonable amount of study, regular practice, and some guidance. I will apply for junior
development positions confident that the requirements of the role are well within my zone of proximal development.
Every time I turn on my System76 laptop (currently running Ubuntu 16.04.1 with Gnome Shell, but I might switch to Arch), I am reminded of the countless kindnesses shown to me, and take heart that the Next Big Thing in my journey is
just around the corner.