University of Auckland
Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) | Software Engineering
Throughout these processes, I definitely would say that the focus was on how I would fit into the team, grow professionally and contribute to Tidy rather than just my technical experience and skills.
While procrastinating his internship applications, Ben was flicking through a university careers magazine when he came across a story about Tidy. After checking out Tidy’s website and doing a bit of research, he decided to apply.
The application process was straightforward and easy. After submitting his CV on the Tidy Careers website, Ben had two interviews during the mid-semester break. The first of these was a more technical interview with the engineering team, and the second was a more relaxed chat with Kevin (Tidy’s CEO).
“Throughout these processes, I definitely would say that the focus was on how I would fit into the team, grow professionally and contribute to Tidy rather than just my technical experience and skills,” he recalls.
Ben was offered a summer internship with the software engineering team.
“Having the opportunity to join Tidy for the summer felt like more than just securing an internship; it was an invitation to contribute to a close-knit community dedicated to innovation and learning. (Totally not ChatGPT)” says Ben.
The most interesting thing Ben worked on during his internship was Web UI Libraries. He spent a lot of time working on and optimising parts of Tidy's internal angular web libraries.
“While the general design was generally already decided on, I was given a lot of freedom to work on and improve various aspects of our core web components. Both improving designs and adding new functionality required for features we were releasing at the time.”
What surprised Ben the most was how much Tidy’s interns are treated as regular employees.
“We work right alongside the other developers, given tasks on whichever project the team is currently focusing on,” he says.
Interning at Tidy isn’t always just about the work. Ben developed close friendships with his fellow interns and supervisors and recalls a memorable moment with them:
“We collectively figured out where all the neighbourhood cats around the office were and went on walks to pet them!”
His advice for the next batch of interns is:
“ChatGPT is amazing, ask *lots* of questions, and if you break your local environment, send Gavin (one of his supervisors) ‘urgent’ messages on teams asking how to fix it.”
Professionally, Ben wants to continue developing his skills in Angular, as it was new to him at the start of his internship, and he really enjoyed using it. This year, he looks forward to third year engineering and continuing to work at Tidy part time.
