My internship at Busbud: Hanane Ikhelef

During summer 2019, I had the chance to participate in an internship at Busbud. Sadly, my internship has now come to an end, but I am grateful and happy that I got this opportunity. I was able to be a part of an amazing team and was able to work on many different projects and broaden my skill set. 

This great adventure started when Rebecca, my dear friend, told me about this great company she had her internship with. She mentioned how much she liked the company and really enjoyed working at it. I looked Busbud up and learned about it and I knew right away that this was the company for me. 

I still remember when I first came in contact with the Busbud folks back in September 2018 at Startup Open House and met Mike Gradek, CTO and co-founder. That night, he explained to me what kind of projects and challenges the engineering team at Busbud was tackling on a daily basis and this is when I manifested my interest to work as a software developer intern at Busbud. 

After my official application, I was asked to do a backend challenge and had interviews with different people from across the company. The application process was smooth and it was an enlightening experience to get a glimpse of what other departments in the company are working on. I was extremely happy when Doug Schlenker, VP of Engineering, called me saying that I was accepted! 

My internship in a nutshell: the first two months

I officially started my internship on the 6th of May 2019 in a mixed squad comprising of product and engineering folks. I had the chance to be paired up with an amazing mentor, Michael Vial. My main focus was working on the Turkish website NeredenNereye.com that Busbud acquired at the end of 2018. With this project, I had the chance to learn many new technologies, most of them focused on frontend development. I was able to refine my skills with React, Bootstrap, JavaScript and was also able to dip into analytics tools such as Amplitude. Lastly, this experience also taught me about A/B testing frameworks and how it is a valuable practice in order to improve the experience for our users.

My last two months:

As my internship progressed, I started working with the Core squad, which is where all the magic happens! I had already learned about front end development, so I was glad to be able to learn about so many new technologies in backend development, which is what the Core squad focuses on. My proudest moment was when I wrote my own integrations from scratch. This experience consolidated my desire to keep learning about developing my skills with APIs and backend systems. Adding to that, every developer on the squad was helpful, patient, creative, and always devoted time to help their peers. I’ve also done a lot of pair programming with some super smart senior software engineers.

I also had the opportunity to work with the most amazing customer support experience team in the industry. I got to investigate customer issues that were flagged by the CX team and determine if there might be a problem from the engineering side. Most importantly, I was able to understand what it means to provide a great customer support experience and see first-hand the positive impact that we make on our customers’ travels.

Life at Busbud

Not only was I able to learn on the engineering side, I was also able to be part of an amazing team and motivating work culture. During my internship, we had the annual Busbud retreat, where the whole company is invited to take a couple of days off and spend time as a team. The retreat took place at a gorgeous location in Quebec’s Eastern Townships where we were able to enjoy many activities and the great outdoors. However, the best part of the retreat was that we devoted some time to discuss as a team about sustainability issues and how we can contribute to solving them. Sustainability is one of Busbud’s core values and the centerpiece of the product. By empowering travelers through technology, Busbud aims to create a more accessible world for everyone, by offering access to sustainable transportation.

Overall, I had a really great experience and I’m so thankful that Busbud helped me achieve my goals for the summer and am so proud to say that I am part of the Busbud community.

Thank you again to all the people I met and worked with at Busbud, it was an honour. 

Psst, Busbud is 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 worldwide, with a team that values an inclusive & collaborative approach to solving complex challenges, join us!