Article | How to get a Summer Internship with Abletech

How to get a Summer Internship with Abletech

By Team Abletech.nz, 22 February 2019, 6 min read

Join our team over summer to experience working as a developer on real projects

We’re often asked how students and graduates can increase their chances of getting a paid summer internship with Abletech. Here are a few options to help you stand out from the crowd:

1. Build your own web or mobile application

Having your own app tells us a lot about you:

You know about the technologies required to build a web app, and how they work
You know something about web frameworks, and the libraries required to make awesome apps
You have experience using the tools and technologies we use on a day-to-day basis at Abletech
You can show off a little by applying some funky, yet appropriate, JavaScript
The actual content gives you an opportunity to impress us with further understanding of applying technology

Most importantly, remember to put your projects on GitHub so we can see examples of your work.

2. Develop a project for someone else

Building an app for someone else shows an employer that you can understand requirements and translate those into something real. It shows that you can speak the language of the customer, and deliver a product that they are happy with.

3. Contribute to an Open Source project

When hiring a new team member, we’re always keen to see some of their code. The kind of code that a person writes says a lot about them. Questions we’re looking to answer are:

Is it clean and tidy?
Is it well structured?
Does it demonstrate an understanding?
Have they over-complicated a simple problem?
Is the implementation a bit ‘too clever’ in that it’s difficult to understand?

These days there is plenty of opportunity to contribute to different open source projects. Obviously, GitHub is a natural starting point.

4. Participate in the community

Become involved in the local tech scene. There are many local groups including Elixir, WellRailed, WellingtonJS, Summer of Tech, Hackfest, RailsBridge, and more.

Join online communities such as StackOverflow and participate. Become involved in open source projects that you’re interested in, and contribute. A starting point might be to write tests or documentation for one of your favourite projects.

Participating in the community raises your profile, and makes you stand out of the crowd. You’ll be noticed and valued as a person who gives back to the community.

5. Give Ruby on Rails, Elixir and React/React Native a go

It should be pretty obvious from our website that we think Ruby on Rails is pretty sweet. Many of us have come from backgrounds in Enterprise IT and its tech such as Java and .Net. In 2005 we made a strategic decision to move away from technologies that were inefficient when compared to modern languages such as Ruby. In hindsight, this was an incredibly important move — and exactly the right choice.

Another language we’re using here at Abletech is Elixir. Elixir is a dynamic, functional language we enjoy using because we can create scalable and maintainable software.

We often use Phoenix, a web framework built with Elixir, to develop a lot of our applications. If you want to learn more about Phoenix/Elixir come along to a monthly Elixir meetup!

Try out Ruby on Rails for free. Heroku offer a free plan where you can host an app at no cost. Other option is prgmr.com for dirt-cheap VPS hosting.

6. Enrol in Summer of Tech

We shortlist students and graduates from the Summer of Tech website. We attend the Meet & Greet, and we value seeing real projects working.

Get involved in the bootcamps from March-August. Recruitment is in September. Internships are full-time from November to February. We look forward to chatting with you at one of the Summer of Tech events.

7. Make contact with us

We’d love to meet you, and hear about what you’re doing. Come and chat with our people at the events we attend. Make it easy for us to choose you by talking to us. Also, chat to one of our team members who started as an intern with us!

If you’re wanting to land a summer internship with us then these are seven things we’ll look at when considering applicants. Good luck! We look forward to meeting you at the upcoming Summer of Tech events.