The new 2021 year is starting of right at DevelopmentAid, as we’re full of captivating plans and initiatives. One of them is our IT Career Starter Internship, which is a fantastic opportunity for young IT enthusiasts to learn from the best experts through real-life tasks & projects.

This program includes two stages, each lasting 2 months – a bootcamp and an internship. During the first one, students will accumulate knowledge and skills from exercises and tasks, supported by our mentors. The best performers then move on to our internship, where they get to experience working with DevelopmentAid’s IT teams and learning more complex programming skills, similar to the ones needed to work in our company. Actually, working at DevelopmentAid is a real possibility after passing our IT Career Starter program, as the best students of the internship will be reviewed for employment.

Needless to say, we think this program is a wonderful way to step into the IT sector if that is your passion! Through practice and communication with experts in the field, you will get the chance to assimilate employable and fundamental IT skills. We decided to talk to two mentors that will monitor the program and your performance, so that you can get to know our experts better and find out more about our initiative. Meet the pros below in our mini-interview with each 🙂

Jonas Balciunas, 37 years old, works at DevelopmentAid since 2016

Q: Jonas, hey! Thank you for finding the time for us. Tell us about your experience in IT, how did it start for you?

A: Actually, I went to university for 6 years in order to become a programmer and learn all about it. I hoped that time would teach me how to program, but then I realised that my programming studies started after finishing university 🙂 Nevertheless, during my studies I had the opportunity to visit and work in the US, as well as spend 6 months studying at the Aalborg University in Denmark, which was great.

Q: During your career, did you ever take part in something similar to our IT Career Starter Internship?

A: Hmm, let me think. Actually, I did not, I started working straight away after graduating. There weren’t many opportunities like that then. Now that I think of it, if I would have an opportunity to do an internship, even during my studies, I would definitely go for it!

Q: We totally agree. And going back to DevelopmentAid’s upcoming program, what can our participants expect from this opportunity?

A: First of all, I have a big expectation: there is a stereotype that IT specialists become pros very easily. I hope we will be able to show participants that it’s actually about problem-solving, and the more complex problems you solve, the better you are as a specialist! But don’t worry, you don’t have to be ideal at the start – it’s all about accumulation of skills over time. Our participants can expect a lot of practical and to-the-point knowledge. In order to find your place in the IT domain, programs like ours are the best to prepare you – we offer you the tools and systems needed to be fit for IT employment. It’s not easy to become an IT specialist form scratch, but your value comes from your basic knowledge and technical skills.

Q: That sounds interesting. Which skills will you work on? What will the participants learn?

A: One thing we will focus on for sure are basic and fundamental programming skills that are vital to start your IT Career. There are certain things you should know well in order to be employable in the IT field, and we will develop those for sure. Our program goal is to cut through lots of secondary and not-so-important theoretical aspects, in order to deliver the essence through buildable knowledge and practical problem-solving activities.

Q: How can the participants then progress to a full-time employment? How would you see a perfect candidate?

A: First of all, a perfect candidate should be very attentive and proactive. The materials we provide will be there, but you need to be able to take them and actually learn from them. Thus, showing interest in the activities and working hard to solve tasks is very important! However, it’s also very valuable to ask questions. We’re here as mentors to answer anything, for us there’s no such thing as stupid questions. That shows you are not afraid and want to improve your skills. Asking few questions actually slows down your progress and harms your studies. Also, candidates should be confident and eliminate the factor of fear from their attitude – thoughts like ‘Do I know enough?’, ‘Am I going into too much detail with topics?’, ‘Am I stuck with the right software?’ should be gone. Also, they should be able to learn and practice, so that complex problems do not block you, and you’re able to get past them operatively.

Q: Jonas, thanks a lot for the talk! See you at our IT Career Starter program!

Victor Istrati, 30 years old, works at DevelopmentAid since 2015

Q: Hey, Victor! Thank you for accepting our invitation to talk. Please tell us about your experience in IT? How did you start?

A: Hey! I actually started in 2010, when a company from ASEM’s start-up incubator offered me a job to work with WordPress. At the same time, I was freelancing, doing websites according to my clients’ requirements. However, soon enough I did not enjoy working with this system that much, as it was a monotone job that dealt with configurations above all. That’s how I started working with the PHP framework, and found a job at DevelopmentAid that used Laravel at the time. We’ve been working for 5 years with the team here ever since!

Q: That’s great! During your career, did you ever take part in something similar to our IT Career Starter Internship?

A: Yes, I did. It was a ‘wow’ experience for me, doing an internship a big company! This experience gave me a glimpse into a large organisation – up to that point I worked in a smaller company with around 5-10 employees. The way the internship was structured, the activities we did… it was very interesting for me!

Q: Wow, that’s awesome! And going back to DevelopmentAid’s upcoming program, what can our participants expect from this opportunity?

A: Well first, they should really enjoy IT! They can certainly expect that with a lot of learning, patience, and effort, they will attain the final goal of being employed in the DevelopmentAid team.

Q: Sounds good. Which skills will you work on? What will the participants learn?

A: Generally speaking, the participants will study PHP in the Laravel framework. In front-end, they will learn JavaScript, HTML, CSS, some AngularJS, and so on. Stick with our program to find out!

Q: How can the participants then progress to a full-time employment? How would you see a perfect candidate?

A: It’s not that hard! The perfect candidate should of course have basic knowledge and a lot of desire to learn. Also, a lot of patience, because the first period of time in the IT team of DevelopmentAid involves a lot of learning. Practically, the candidate will have to interact with many colleagues to get the hold of things 🙂 Also, a lot of individual learning is needed – the candidate needs to be willing to go through that.

Q: Victor, thank you so much for your time and we can’t wait for the IT Career Starter program!

We would like to thank our mentors for opening up to us, and hope you enjoyed meeting them! Certainly, they are very excited to meet you and lead you through the start of your IT career by giving you fundamental knowledge and practical experience in the field.

If this opportunity appeals to you and your interests, we sincerely invite you to apply here and start your ITinerary with DevelopmentAid!