My Internship Journey at OOCL Philippines: Software Engineer Intern
Brief Introduction:
Hello everyone! My name is Dominic Antigua, a 4th-year Computer Science student from Adamson University. This is my first internship, required by the University, as a Programmer / Software Engineer Intern.
Internship Application Interview:
I started my internship on February 27, 2023, after going through an application process. I had an initial interview with my supervisor, who mostly asked about my resume and a few technical questions. The second interview was a technical exam conducted by a senior developer on my team, covering programming problem areas like code refactoring, debugging, security, and tracing. I am glad I passed because I was running out of time to find a company and the month of March is coming.
Start of my Journey:
On my first third day, I experienced “new job anxiety” in the company setup, but it went well. The team was friendly and accommodating, even though I struggled with understanding some of their terms and instructions.
During the first week, my supervisor tells me what they do as a team, their daily routine and guided me to setup my remote working environment. The team works on maintaining the Oracle Reporting System (ORS), an application used by OOCL employees in the shipping industry. It generates manifest reports with shipment information, required by authorities to assess the legality of cargo goods entering a country.
The ORS team focuses on enhancing the UI and fixing bugs in the application’s Logic. The team had a daily standup meeting, known as the Daily Scrum Meeting, for quick updates. There was also a daily code review to maintain code quality. Iteration Planning Meetings (IPM) were held at the start of each iteration to plan tasks. Each iteration lasted two weeks.
During my probation, the team introduced me to various tasks, including creating unit tests for system functionality, enhancing ReactJS UI/UX, encrypting booking details, investigating report issues, optimizing/refactoring ORS performance, deploying bug/enhancement fixes using Jenkins and Git/GitLab, and utilizing IDE debugging tools to improve software stability. As an intern, I didn’t work alone; each task required guidance or pairing with a team member. This experience taught me a lot about teamwork in project development, and it was a great learning experience.
Before my internship ends, my final task in the team was to host a coding dojo. What I thought was a Jeopardy-style Capture the Flag dojo, which the team enjoyed.
Additionally, I was assigned to create a feature for the ORS application that will leave a lasting impression on current and future developers. Consequently, I developed a user favorites report that enables application users to add and filter frequently visited reports. I dedicated over two weeks, or one iteration, to completing this task and successfully finished it before the end of my internship.
The End:
Overall, my OOCL internship provided me with a valuable experience in real software engineering work, and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity.
