I will always remember my first day as a Busbud intern: I felt nervous, happy and excited at the same time. I wanted to make a good impression and fit well into my new workplace, so I had arrived early and dressed professionally.

Thankfully enough the team made it easy for me to feel at ease. They greeted me as soon as I came in, making sure I could meet all my new coworkers and receive all my new Busbud gear (MacBook Pro and swag). They showed me around, including my desk and the snack bar. The team and the work environment (team lunches, couches, ping-pong table, stand-up desks and Busbud Drinks) made me feel like at home. In fact, I quickly realized I could be myself at Busbud: I could dress casually and decide of my own work schedule.

The first few weeks were easy and fun: I was slowly settling in, setting up dev environment on my computer. I also met with the company’s C-level executives and the Customer Experience team, with which I later worked on one of my internship’s biggest projects. Then, during my second week, our entire team went on a 3-day trip to the Laurentides for the annual Busbud Retreat. This trip was probably the most fun social event during my internship as we were staying in a cabin near a lake where we relaxed, played games but also had a few late night parties.

As I was surrounded by these amazing people, I realized I also wanted to show them how amazing I was. My first month was tough: I gave everything I had in order to learn new coding languages & tools (GitHub, React, JavaScript, HTML/CSS & NodesJS), and to become more familiar with code and engineering practices. At times, it felt like this was a constant battle against myself.

In those harder times, there was always someone to support or help me on both technical and personal levels. Having weekly one-on-ones with my manager accelerated my learning process as he would often give me constructive feedback or insights on how to approach problems. Those meetings were also a good opportunity for me to voice my opinion, which I appreciated.

During my second month, I became more comfortable with Front-End Developing. I could manage GitHub, code experiments and resolve bugs. One of the things I appreciated the most was to be able to pick my own tasks, which made it easy for me to select those with an appropriate level of difficulty.

During my third month, I participated in the Busbud Hackathon, a 3-day event dedicated to projects and ideas aimed at improving the company’s product. I chose to work on a project I believed would make a difference for Busbud users, which was meant to improve their experience when contacting the Customer Experience team. Although I was the only developer assigned to work on it, the idea and hackathon prototype were good enough to continue working on after the hackathon. In the end, I did most of the design work and code writing of the Help Page. It allowed me to collaborate with both Product and Customer Experience teams and together, we worked towards an optimized solution for our users.

I owe a large part of my internship’s success to my coworkers as they helped and supported me when I didn’t understand concepts. They basically taught me everything I know about developing today.

Each individual’s experience at Busbud is unique in its own way, so I hope you enjoy yours!

Rebecca has started a blog, My Coding Book, which gives “a women’s point of view of the tech world”.

We’re hiring!

At Busbud, we’re always looking for talented engineers who want to help make bus travel more accessible. If you’re interested in working on a product that’s used by millions of travelers, with a team that values an inclusive & collaborative approach to solving complex challenges, join us! We currently have openings for Front-End, Back-End and Full Stack Developer positions.