This post was written by Dmitry Kobets, a Software Engineering student at University of Waterloo who just finished his co-op work term job here at Zeitspace. We’ll miss you, Dmitry!
You know how time flies by when you’re having fun? Well at Zeitspace, blink once and the term is over.
As a first-year co-op student, working at Zeitspace was an invaluable source of experience. Over the four months that I was here, I partook in three different projects, all with different tech stacks, and all with completely different workflows and expectations. From Angular to React, from sprint planning to weekly demos, this term has taught me more about the Software Development Cycle than my first two study terms at Waterloo.
A big part of my decision to work at Zeitspace was the company’s approach to co-ops — Zeitspace claimed to give co-ops real opportunities and big responsibilities. If anything, the real deal exceeded my expectations. Despite starting completely fresh on day one, I was already presenting a demo to a client by week two, and leading weekly planning meetings with another client by the middle of the term. Starting a project from scratch? No problem, at Zeitspace I was in full cooperation with a full-time employee to choose and develop the tech stack that best met our client’s needs. And on the topic of tech stacks, the large variety of projects basically amounted to three different companies/experiences all in one term! As a co-op, I got to see for myself how various tech and non-tech-oriented companies function. I became immersed in the ways of Scrum as an approach to organizing development work.
Of course, being a first year co-op I didn’t know much about these things when I first started. Luckily, many of the crew at Zeitspace turned out to be co-op students just like myself. This created an environment of learning and support, and I never felt like a dead weight on the company. Over the term, we learned a ton by not only developing various products, but also simply from each others’ past experiences.
All in all, this summer has been very beneficial for me as a co-op student. From off-site meetings to back-end development, I learned much more than I had hoped for at the start. Looking back at the beginning of the co-op process, when I had several offers to choose from, I’m glad that I went with Zeitspace.
