I had many goals for this work term, but the ones listed below were the most important to me.
A goal I held at high priority for this work term was developing upon my programming skills. In particular, my focus was to improve upon my debugging skills and ability to make informed design decisions. My role was very independent by nature. Though my manager was available to talk through problems, he would always allow me to approach them at my own angle. As the term progressed, I became more aware of how I tackled problems. I would discuss issues with others and gather their insight before settling on a solution. I would draw out diagrams as projects grew in scale, making sure to understand the entire scope of the program before attempting to debug it. Both my manager and I noticed how my coding improved over the course of working at Auvik. Though I cannot say that I achieved this goal, I definitely made considerable progress.
Another skill that I aimed to improve during this work term was my communication. I was able to work on this goal as our team participated in daily stand up meetings that needed updates from each team member, as well as weekly sprint meetings that required team members to prepare in advance, articulate their current status, and discuss plans for the next sprint.
My last goal was to work on personal organization skills and managing my time well. Due to the nature of my role, I'm confident I achieved this goal. Unlike school assignments with set rubrics and deadlines, much of my work involved open tasks with no set deadlines. I was in a position where I had to judge myself on my work performance. With each sprint, I learned more about the extent of my capabilities. It became easier to set out a plan, chunk tasks and allocate my time. Upon completion of my time at Auvik, I feel more confident in my ability to organize myself and understand myself better as a professional.
My first goal targeted at technology was to learn and become proficient in Python. My manager assisted me in reaching this goal, as he gave me in-depth code reviews and the opportunity to take charge of a web application to develop alone. I was motivated to write structured code that could be built upon and maintained with minimal effort.
My second goal targeted at technology was to feel comfortable with using REST APIs to interact with web services and alter data, as well as help to complete the integration of automated tasks with Kubernetes. I spent a significant amount of time researching how REST works and modifying test data in a sandbox environment. This effort ensured I was comfortable using these APIs in production where they would change real customer data. I was also a key player in integrating the automated report generation with Kubernetes, a container-orchestration system. As I had no prior experience with Kubernetes, this was a great learning experience. Few people were familiar with it as it was a relatively new system, so being heavily involved with this setup was very challenging and exciting.