I was doing my undergrad in the UK, and it was standard practice to look for an internship the summer before graduation. While on exchange in Switzerland, I taught myself some programming (Python & PHP), and was determined to become a Software Engineer.
I only secured interviews with two UK-based companies, and was fortunate to receive an offer from MathWorks, the maker of MATLAB and Simulink, which I was very happy to accept.
The Work
Software Engineer Intern (Jul 2013 – Sep 2013)
I worked on the Simulink team, specifically on the AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) integration, making it easier to sync models between Simulink & AUTOSAR’s authoring tool.
My feature supporting the data dictionary in Simulink ended up in the 2014a release.
Takeaways
This was my first experience in the world of technology/software. My biggest takeaway was gaining familiarity with the full software lifecycle & tooling, including:
- version control with CVS
- the spec → develop → QA → release iteration cycle
- build & test pipelines
I wrote a good amount of MATLAB code, and learned the basics of C++.
People
I’m grateful to the senior engineers who helped me navigate my first software engineering experience, notably:
- My internship mentor Richard Thompson
- The team’s manager Jon Fielder