First, I would like to introduce myself. I’m Jonas Verlinden, a 25-year-old student with a big passion for full-stack development. As I write this, I am a student at Hogeschool PXL and pursuing a degree in Full Stack Application Development.
At the end of the last semester, I was tasked with finding a company willing to provide me with an internship. When exploring the suggestions given to me by PXL, I quickly came across a company named JArchitects, a Java-based software consultancy company. Upon reaching out, I was promptly welcomed, and after a few interviews, I was invited to do my internship with them.
During my first interview, I was informed that the company would be merging with another software consultancy company named Continuum. JArchitects would cease to exist and would operate under the Continuum name. The merger was scheduled to happen just before my internship.
The internship
Late February, my 13-week internship finally began. It started in Lummen at the Pyramid next to ‘Het Klaverblad,’ a very iconic building that always piqued my interest and curiosity when driving past it. I was warmly welcomed by the employees and received a few goodies. We began with an introduction of everyone involved in the internship. I also had the chance to meet my fellow interns, named Jonathan, Zico, Jeremy, and Neal – four fantastic interns with whom I developed a friendship.
After a brief introduction to everyone, we were informed about our assignment: the e-Tribe tool. Employees have the opportunity to get a hybrid or electric company car, which incur monthly costs that Continuum covers for their employees. The e-Tribe tool would serve as an application to assist in the administration of these recharge costs.
We were shown a few UI ideas and asked to iterate on them. The functional requirements were also presented and explained. With a clear assignment, we began working in an Agile framework called Scrum. We decided to have sprints of 2 weeks and hold a demo at the end of each sprint to show the product owner what we had accomplished during each sprint.
The struggles
The internship was not without struggles. In the beginning, we were instructed to start from scratch and create a ‘walking skeleton’ using several new frameworks and technologies, such as NX, Spring Boot 3, and Keycloak. Not all the interns were experienced in these frameworks, which resulted in a slow and challenging start.
A lot of helping hands
Continuum was very willing to offer a lot of assistance. Not only our mentors, but every employee was eager to lend a hand. Employees frequently visited our table, showing interest in our progress, asking if we encountered any issues, and offering help. We were also pleased with the various activities organised by Continuum to improve our skills. This included code cleanup sessions, where we received valuable feedback, as well as informative talks on subjects like Dependency Injection and Beans in Spring Boot. Additionally, we participated in a 2-day Clean Code bootcamp, where we learned how to write easily readable code and apply SOLID principles.
Conclusion
I couldn’t be happier with how my internship at Continuum went. I could always ask for help when needed and felt welcomed from day one. It was an incredible experience to be part of the tribe and gain insights into the functioning of a workplace. I made some amazing connections and even secured my next job at one of the companies in the same office, Digitalum. Thanks to the exceptional guidance of Continuum, I was able to grow at an incredible rate. I strongly recommend any future interns to consider joining Continuum. You will feel at home in the first week and learn a lot in a short period of time. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who helped me and my fellow interns during this period and ensured it became an experience I will forever cherish.
Jonas Verlinden
Intern
Jonas is a recent graduate in Applied Informatics. He was one of the interns at Continuum from September until June. He will be starting at our sister company Digitalum as an AEM Developer.
