My Journey from Intern to Junior Developer at ilert
I studied web and app development at bib International College. At ilert, I'm constantly learning and growing by working on projects that improve our platform. I’d like to share my journey of joining the ilert team, the first challenges I’ve encountered, and some advice I’d offer to other aspiring junior developers or frontend developers taking their first steps in the tech industry.
How Do You Get Your First Job as a Frontend Developer?
It all started when my college teacher suggested that I consider an internship at ilert. I decided to apply and was lucky enough to be accepted. During my internship, I worked on developing a dashboard — a customizable page that allows clients to see team-related metrics and gain insights into different aspects of the incident management process. This hands-on experience was great for me because it was the first time I worked on such a big project in a real-world scenario and with many new technologies:
- React: A JavaScript library for building user interfaces that allowed us to create reusable UI components.
- TypeScript: A typed superset of JavaScript that adds static types, making code more robust and easier to debug.
- Material UI (MUI): A popular React UI framework that implements Google's Material Design and provides pre-built, customizable components.
- MobX: A state management library that simplifies managing and updating the state in React applications.
After my internship, I continued working on the dashboard as a working student and later as a junior developer, helping launch its first version for customers. Now, I fully own the dashboard feature (under the supervision of my senior colleagues, of course), overseeing its functionality and resolving issues. While it's a huge responsibility, I'm grateful that since day one, I’ve had my project that constantly evolves.
First challenge
Now, a few words on challenges. One of the biggest issues I faced was implementing drag-and-drop and resizing features for the new dashboard version. Finding a suitable package was difficult, but after testing many options, I settled on react-grid-layout.
Progress was smooth at first until I got stuck with a nasty bug: the widgets started mysteriously snapping to the center of the screen. I combed through the code, trying everything I knew but couldn’t find the issue. After hours of frustration, I reached out to a teammate, who offered simple advice: ‘Follow the flow of the code.’ With that nudge, I soon discovered the culprit—I'd swapped numbers in the widget position calculations, pushing the widgets outside the dashboard boundaries and causing them to default back to the center.
Fixing this small error instantly solved the problem, and I gained some valuable insights. I realized that small tips can be incredibly helpful when you're stuck. It also showed me that spending too much time fixated on a bug can lead to tunnel vision, causing you to overlook simple mistakes. Sometimes, it's best to step away, rest, and revisit the issue the next day with fresh eyes.
What Should Junior Developers Focus on When Starting Their Careers?
Reflecting on my journey, I'd like to share some tips for those starting out as junior developers, front-end developers or working students:
- Combine React's component-based architecture with MUI's styled-components to create reusable and readable UI elements. For instance, we use an extensive collection of shared React components, such as tables and selects. We also use the MUI theme, which uses spacing, palette, and typography to ensure consistent styling across all components. These shared components and themes make coding much faster and ensure consistency across the app.
- Ask questions wisely! Of course, asking questions is essential, but if you're stuck, try to solve problems yourself first. Research and try different solutions before asking for help. This approach not only improves your problem-solving skills but also demonstrates your commitment to learning. Take the initiative to learn and understand the technologies you're working with. Don't hesitate to explore documentation, tutorials, and other resources.
- Use efficient state management in your React applications e.g. MobX. For example, we use the store pattern, maintaining shared stores primarily for our API calls and a page store to combine those API calls while adding UI logic. This approach simplifies state management and keeps your code organized.
- The transition to full-time work can be stressful. Stay resilient, and remember that challenges are opportunities for growth.
If you’re a new frontend developer or junior developer and ready to start your career, explore the ilert career page to see if there’s a role that suits you. Good luck on your journey!
ilert's CTO, Christian Fröhlingsdorf:
"We are always welcoming engineers who are at the beginning of their careers and are eager to grow and evolve as developers. There is no magic pill or fast track to becoming an experienced engineer. In my experience, the only functional approach to growing is to have a real product area or features and take responsibility for it. It's one thing to work on something that may never reach production and another to receive customer feedback on a daily basis."
