I’m writing all of this retrospectively so it won’t be as verbose as the previous post.

Context

Last Fall, I was given the opportunity to work part-time at Capital One on the same team that I was on in the summer. I delved deeper into the project and was able to learn a lot more about what it means to write production code.

The team dynamics were also a big change. The other intern on the project quit so it was just me for the semester. Working alone was a challenge but being familiar with the team and the codebase allowed me to hit the ground running. I made sure to loop in two of the engineers on the team to keep them posted on my progress and to clear up any issues that I had. I owe them a lot of thanks for reviewing my code especially when we were close to the deadline.

What I Did

The gist of my project was taking the intelligent search library we used over the summer and making it production-ready. I was tasked with writing unit tests, integration tests, building the CI/CD pipelines, and refactoring the entire codebase.

The outcome from onboarding the library was able to perform remote execution. Till now, the components in the library were only able to be used locally. Remote execution meant that we could run the components in a managed cloud environment with zero setup. We could even save workflows and reuse them with different inputs.

The entire MLaaS (Machine Learning as a Service) platform which the library was built for was still in development and constantly changing so it was really rewarding to be able to push the needle and contribute to it.

What I Learned

The real value from this experience wasn’t the actual project. It was learning how to balance work with school. I was also working as a Teaching Assistant during this time which was fulfilling but it really cut my free time short.

The Fall semester was a real challenge but I don’t think I’ve ever been more productive in my life. I feel a lot smarter and more capable. I’m more confident in my ability to contribute on a team as well as master my coursework in school.

Through this experience, I learned my limits as well as the value of work-life balance. I’m looking forward to how the Spring semester goes with everything that I learned.