Yelp’s internship program is an important part of the engineering culture. For many of our current engineers, interning with Yelp was the first step to launching their careers. Former intern, Daniel F., is no exception. Before joining the Biz Core team at Yelp, Daniel was finishing his Master’s Degree in Computer Science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He’s an avid (and successful!) participant in competitive programming contests all the way up to attending the International Olympiad in Informatics. Together with his academic background in modern software architectures, Daniel has been a powerful addition to the team. Curious to learn more about Daniel and his internship project? Read on to see why Yelp has been his best internship so far.
Why did you decide on an internship with Yelp?
Before Yelp, I had been mostly engaged in research and teaching-related work at my university. The tech industry was something I had never experienced before and I knew having experience at a software company would be an added benefit. For one, it would make it easier for me to decide what I want to do after my studies, but I imagined it would also be a fun experience overall. When deciding where to apply, I was looking for a couple of things: a great engineering culture, brand recognition, and location in a bigger city. I went online and looked for positions that would be of interest to me, one of which was Yelp. At first I was a bit surprised since I didn’t know that they had an engineering office in Hamburg. After going through the interview process, the people I talked to left a very positive impression on me. The interviews did not feel rushed, and I got the chance to discuss different topics with the people who I was interviewing with. When I got the offer, I was excited about it and decided to give it a shot.
What project did you work on?
During my first couple of weeks, I was working on many smaller tickets which helped me to get to know the codebase. After the first month, I got my first project- introducing device version support for profile progress meter steps on the business app. I was working alone on this, so I had a lot of freedom in deciding how I wanted to solve this problem. After finishing, I got the opportunity to pick my next project. I chose to work on providing a way for business owners to add comments on every change they apply to their business’ information. This, plus some contextual guidelines, made it easier for the changes to be verified and accepted. This was an overall great experience since I was working on it with a couple of other engineers on a team. My role was to implement all the necessary back-end and front-end support. It was a lot of fun especially because I was offered to work on the front-end part which I did not have much experience with.
When you’re not interning, where do you live and study?
I come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I’ve been living and studying in Germany for the past five years. I’m currently doing my masters in computer science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe.
What’s your favorite thing about living in Hamburg? What are your favourite places to go?
Even though Hamburg is a relatively large city, you can get from one place to another very quickly. I have never waited more than five minutes for a bus or a subway! One thing people constantly complain about is the lack of sunshine, which is true to some degree, especially if you are interning during fall/winter like me. But I was still able to catch some sunny days, which I took advantage of to explore some of the city parks and beaches around Hamburg. My favourite places are the city park Planten und Blomen and the Elbstrand at Blankenese. But interning during the winter also has its good sides. You can enjoy watching the whole city turn into a big Christmas market and explore all the delicious food it has to offer.
What’s your advice for future interns?
Try to make the most of it because time will pass fast. You will most likely make a mistake or two, or some things just won’t go as you expected – and that’s totally fine! This is especially true for the first couple of weeks. The most valuable things are the lessons you learn from exactly these mistakes.
Apart from that, have fun during your internship. Meet new people and get to know your coworkers, listen to their stories, explore the city and enjoy your time in Hamburg.
Want to learn more about internships like Daniel’s?
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