Software Developer, Problem Solver: My Experience Interning at Procurify
“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” ― Laozi
Before interning as a software developer at Procurify, I envisioned a FinTech startup to be a Hackathon in its corporate incarnation. My work at Procurify proves this vision right and wrong. While technical proficiency is key to programming, software development is by no means equivalent to coding thousands of lines with a foreseeable deadline. At Procurify, I had the privilege to work with a team solving problems around payments and customer onboarding―an awesome group of individuals that have encouraged my personal growth beyond being busy. With their tremendous trust and support, I was able to grow quickly in technical proficiency and problem solving.
In the Procurify developer blog series, the engineering team members have introduced programming techniques, remote work, and company culture. In this post, I focus on my takeaways on problem solving.
Takeaway 1: understanding a problem to solve and planning the right strategy can be just as rewarding as actioning on a task immediately. An unforgettable experience was the first time I helped drive product development and build a solution to a problem from beginning to end — building an audit log for a key piece of account configuration. During the initial analysis, the project may take 2–3 months to complete. However, through problem analysis meetings, we were able to identify the root cause for the issue and ship out a central portion first. Through a much shortened iteration, we achieved three goals:
1. Adding values to customers two months in advance.
2. Eliminating related support tickets 100%.
3. Collecting data for future iterations.
Working on the project motivated me to execute ownership with a customer-centred vision.
Takeaway 2: Identifying urgency and prioritizing is key to good problem solving. With the rise of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, I helped the team drive a project related to credit card shipment. This was a time sensitive issue as it affected customer onboarding. Meanwhile, as the service targets the entire customer base, an important work is to tailor the service to high demands. By identifying both urgency and priority, we were able to exceed the expectation with a one-week-faster turnaround. The time we saved allowed us to improve the API performance by 4–5 times. Through the work, I gained invaluable experience on how to exceed expectations while anticipating and taking into account client needs.
In a fully distributed world, working with a good team allows you to flatten your learning curve as an individual. The internship at Procurify has sped up my growth as a software developer and as a problem solver.
