Olivia wanted to do her internship at her dream company

For Olivia, it was important to do her internship at a company that cares about its employees and where knowledge sharing is part of the culture.

Why did you choose to do your internship with us at Epinova?

I heard a lot about Epinova during my studies because Annika, our COO, is a member of the management team at Nackademin. Epinova was one of the first companies we came in contact with and I immediately felt that - Wow, that's where I want to work! I got the impression that Epinova was a company that really cares about its employees, does a lot of fun things and encourages you to develop all the time. In short, Epinova was the dream company to do an internship at. My picture was of course correct and more!

How were you received, how was your first time with us?

I was so nervous before my first day. But it quickly disappeared once I got to the office! I felt very welcome from the start and everyone I met was super nice. In the beginning, a lot of time was spent on various reviews and onboarding. I got an introduction to the editor mode in Optimizely, to Epinova's framework, how to work as a developer at Epinova, and how to work at Epinova in general with project methodology. Early on, we also had to jump in and solve bugs and add content to the ForSea project, which was in the final stages! After a couple of weeks, the fun really began, we got our own project, we were going to develop Epinova's brand new website!

How would you describe your LIA?

My LIA has been at least as good as I had hoped it would be. I've been working on a real project almost the whole period, which felt like an incredible luxury! My time at LIA has felt like a very good introduction to life as a developer.

What have you learned?

I've learned so much! That you should never be afraid to ask if you can't - everyone always wants to help. I've also become much better at problem solving, and I can do a lot more than I think! Above all, I have learned an incredible amount of programming, become a better coder for every day at Epinova.

How would you describe our culture and how we work?

We have many talented senior developers at Epinova that we juniors learn from. If you get stuck on a problem you can't solve, there's always a senior developer to bounce ideas off of. It feels so good as a junior!

Now you're employed, what does a normal day look like for you?

I start the day by checking my calendar. Then I check if any pull request has been approved for merge, if so, I mergear it. After that, I go into our board in Azure and see what needs to be done and pick a task and start coding! Right now we're in the final stages of the new Epinova website so I'm mostly doing bug fixes of things we've created before. A lot of my code from last winter I improve. Every other day we have daily standup also with the team for the Epinova web.

Tell us about something you're extra proud of?

I have to say the search function that me and Wezz developed. I had it as a degree project and it was a real ordeal, it was a bit over my head. But the thesis was finished with good grades and with the help of Wezz and his awesome filtering component, we now have a really good search page on our new website!

What do you do in your free time?

- I like being out in nature. I'm very interested in mushrooms! I read a lot of books, I like music and I like to go to gigs. I brew my own beer with my partner and this summer we have also had a cultivation of chili and tomatoes out on the balcony. I also have a big red cat named Gorbachev that I spend some time with.