My Journey as a Backend development intern at HNGi8 internship
By: Florence Egwu
Tags: Data Science, Hnginternship, Backend Development, Software Development, Learning

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young”. — Henry Ford

Have you ever been in a situation where you have the desire and zeal to do a thing but lack the discipline to go through with it? I often find myself in this dilemma when trying to self-learn. I will start a course but never finish it. I have a bunch of unfinished personal projects lying around on my pc. As expected, habits like this hurt my tech growth because learning and commitment is a key factor in the industry.

My solution to this kind of problem is to always participate in competitive programs. Such programs help me to remain accountable and focused. Seeing others do the same thing I struggle with challenges me a lot.

So, For the next few months, I will be participating in the HNGi8 internship backend development track.

About HNG internship

HNG internship is a free 2–3 months remote program that recruits and trains talented people once a year in digital skills such as:

front-end development

backend development

UI/UX design

digital marketing

mobile development, etc.

created by https://twitter.com/milinches (an HNGi8 intern)

The internship is fast-paced and challenging. And helps people learn how to work in teams, deal with pressure and expand their hands-on experience.

You can read more about HNG internships on their official and partner websites:

So, why did I join this internship? — My goals and target by the end of the 8 weeks

My top reasons for joining this program are working on projects, connecting with people, and becoming job-ready. Statistics have shown that a good number of HNG finalists get hired not too long after the program.

Yes, becoming an “HNG finalist” is a goal for me. Achieving this would imply that I successfully scaled through the rigorous process and have become a better software developer.

As an HNG finalist, I would have achieved the following within 8 weeks:

Improve my people skill by being able to communicate and work with a team effectively

Improve my skills (hard and soft) and portfolio (by adding the projects carried out during this internship)

Since HNG internship is famous for being pressure and practice-filled. I will be using the program as an opportunity to grow my grit

How do I know I am ready for this program?

The HNG Internship is focused on participants with prior experience either by going through the organizer’s beginner training or self-learning. However, anybody can apply. Personally, I have taken the path of self-learning. I have been continuously learning and improving my data science and backend skills.

As a backend intern, I find that one would need some specific skills to scale through the program. Some these include:

A programming language: Backend development deals with the server-side of development. It focuses on databases, scripting, website architecture, etc. To do all that, you would need to use programming languages such as python, Golang, PHP, Nodejs, etc. I have intermediate Python skills. However, I plan to learn and use Golang for this internship because it is the primary backend language for the program this year. The internet is littered with helpful tutorial materials for beginners both paid and unpaid.

This 6hours video tutorial by Mosh is a very good place for a beginner to learn python

2. Git and GitHub: Software developers working in teams continually write new source code and make changes to existing ones. Git is a version control system that lets them manage and keep track of their coding activities. While GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that lets them manage their Git repositories. Every developer needs to know how to navigate Github as it enables you to collaborate effectively with your team without messing things up. Below is a great tutorial for a complete beginner learning how to use Git and GitHub.

A Git and Github beginner-friendly tutorial by freeCodeCamp.org

3. Figma: As a developer, you will need to access design elements and extract design information about the software you are working on. Figma is a design tool that can let you do so very easily. It is rapidly gaining popularity and being used by many companies around the world. Hence, a basic knowledge of Figma gives you an edge as a developer. This introduction to Figma tutorial by the Zuri team is a good place to start learning about Figma.

A Figma beginner-friendly tutorial by the Zuri Team

So, yes! That is it!! HNG has started!!! And I am excited to be a part of the journey. Since this article contains my goals for the program, it will serve as my accountability partner. As a part of me would always feel that I owe you — my reader, the duty of achieving them.

You can check out my handles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and GitHub to track my tech journey and give feedback. Kindly leave a thought for me in the comment section and click the clap button if you deem this a good read.

Thanks for your time.