Nowadays, large companies have very high requirements for technical interns to become regular employees. It is common for them to have PPT defense process involving external departments, and they can only get the final Offer after many passes. Under the high standards, the students in practice and the senior students who are responsible for the introduction of interns are under great pressure, and many students in practice worry every day


I am just doing some routine work now, there is no bright spot, when the time comes, there is nothing to write PPT


I have also led a few interns, to say personal understanding of technical interns to full-time


Measure of conversion

At the beginning of the internship, it will be very contradictory as a senior. On the one hand, I hope the intern can have extensive contact with the business and technical system of the team, so that there will be a balanced development in the transformation of working thinking and technical ability. I also hope that interns can focus on a vertical field, combine the pain points of the business in-depth research, and make some personal characteristics of improvement and breakthrough. After trying the first idea for a week or two, most of the senior students will train interns with the second idea under the pressure of becoming a regular employee, or even pick up the seeds and encourage them to package them


Looking back now, the “bright spot” expectations of this anxiety were both unrealistic and unnecessary


It is unrealistic because many brothers have been deeply engaged in this business for several years. If an intern came here for two months and discovered the bright spot independently and realized it at a small cost, it would be a slap in the face of all brothers


Not necessarily because most teams have universal, clear criteria for hiring technical interns, and there are no unrealistic “highlights” required of interns. The highlights are the criteria themselves

  1. Technical strength
  2. Technical thinking


These two seem nothing special at first sight, just as the so-called: epee sword without edge, big coincidence does not work. Many interns will encounter difficulties from the judges

  1. That’s pretty clear, but what’s your role in this? Design, program, test, document?
  2. Is this something you want to do, or is it something assigned to you by your supervisor or senior?


In fact the two problems are in check the above standard, don’t know your character because when things don’t highlight the process, the difficulty to solve the problem, the way of dealing with, feel is in talk about other people do, is just one of the common participants themselves, the whole process of this paper did not highlight its own technical strength; The second question will even get some interns excited about the defense. I wrote the code from beginning to end. Let’s look at the commit record. In fact, what the judges are struggling with is that you solved the problem in a perfect way. You are more like a good executor under the protection of the team. Why did you make these correct technical decisions, but the technical thinking was not reflected


PS. The standard is summed up by me in combination with the opinions of HR and the judges after I have participated in several rounds of legalization lectures. The use of the word “standard” is a title party behavior


Methodology — the process of doing things according to standards

A lot of times we ignore simplicity because it sounds corny, even nonsense, which goes without saying, because when you try to get around it, you get hit with a brick wall; Another reason is that I understand the truth and still have a bad life. Many channels need the guidance of methodology to play the best role, there are many mature methodologies in the industry, the better one is STAR

  1. Situation: In a Situation where everything you do has a cause and effect, why do you need to do it in the moment
  2. Task: Define your goals, both qualitative and quantitative, so that everything is measurable
  3. Action: Break down the specific and feasible execution strategy and execution rhythm according to the target
  4. Result: Review the results, whether the set goals have been completed, and what technical deposits have been made in the process


Many students may be confused, according to you so follow the rules, do not need a bright spot can become regular pass? Actually isn’t so, obtainment of process is the best, natural need candidates some bright spots, but the qualities which are what we need is to do things out of the window, not involved in an important project, it is very important to do is, in other words need to look to make the most mundane things features, reflect personal technology strength and technical thinking, Listen to thunder in silence


As ridiculous as it sounds, to use a recent example from the team to illustrate my understanding of the transition methodology, the background is this


Our team has a technical product called Tangram, which can synchronize code fragments to Java, Node and other back-end applications without passing the release control process. Many colleagues make use of this feature to achieve tangram on the content that often needs to be changed on the page. At the same time, tangram provides a visual form interface for editing data, which allows non-technical students to push updates to the application by filling in forms. Many pages of marketing and advertising content are pushed by operation.

Convenient is very convenient, but not safe, the company also has the requirements of safe production, no gray level is not released. So I assigned a task to the newcomer — tangram access to our release control system, which is when the newcomer can do a lot.


To complete the task

  1. Understand the principle of tangram publishing
  2. Understand the access method of the release control system
  3. Design and implement architecture and write code
  4. Configure publication control system rules
  5. Add user reminders on the release interface
  6. test
  7. Inform jigsaw puzzle users to access the release control system, non-window changes to go through the approval process
  8. release


This seems to be an impeccable process, but if it is made in this way, as part of the transition PPT, the judges will ask the above two questions


Make a characteristic

Another way to do this is to think about a few questions before you start


  1. What’s the goal of the whole thing?
  2. Who is my user?
  3. What are their demands?


If we think about it this way it’s easy to see the problem with the first way of doing things, our goal is obviously not tangram access to the release control system, it’s strategy


Our goal is to ensure the stability of tangram release and achieve safe production. Although the task is to access the release control system, which is a good solution, we should systematically think about the unstable factors of tangram. Which problem is solved by access to the release control system? How serious are other problems? Should we do it now? At least, it can restore the analysis process of the senior brother’s strategy, and the STAR principle mapped to the above can make a clear cognition of the background and objectives to guide the design of strategy


Back to the execution strategy, access to the release control system is a clear action. Will there be any side effects if the problem of production safety is solved? As mentioned above, users should be connected to the release control system when adding user reminders and notifications on the release interface, and changes during non-release window should go through the approval process. This is one of the considerations, but is it comprehensive? We can analyze it from the user’s point of view


Who are our users and what do they want

  1. Development: Often rapid release of non-functional, bug changes. After we made the above modifications, the development demands can still be met. Although the review process during non-window period will block the release process, it is reasonable according to the production safety requirements
  2. Operation and PD: visual modification, rapid push of advertising and marketing content online. It still looks satisfied, but a careful analysis is problematic, because of the routine time of the network, a lot of network is caused by the promotion, and promotion period is the need for advertising, marketing content frequent modification


In this way, we will find that our strategy is actually flawed. We can analyze the demands of these users. The code modified by these users is fixed, but the pit material is changed, and the risk is very low

  1. Code level changes are locked during the closure period, and visual content can be exempted from the review process through a single application, or only approved by the supervisor
  2. Release access automated testing ensures release quality


Although things may not be done immediately, but can reflect the individual in the process of thinking. As mentioned above, the whole goal is safe production, so it is reasonable to sort out the unstable factors of tangram and the follow-up plan


It is not only the code in Git that can reflect technical strength. Making reasonable decisions is often a comprehensive reflection of technical strength and technical thinking


Technical thinking

One more thing, many students think the concept of technical thinking is abstract. My understanding of technical thinking is that people can think when facing a problem

  1. What’s the real problem
  2. What triggers the problem
  3. What can be done to fix the problem
  4. What can be done to prevent the problem from happening again
  5. What are the feasibility and priorities of these instruments and methods


Once in the team weekly meeting, I even summed up the differences among p-level people in Alibaba: P5 fix problems, P6 find problems, P7 define problems, and P8 may be creation problems. I asked several students why we use our own Gitlab instead of Github enterprise, and got a lot of interesting answers

  1. The Intranet has high speed and unlimited capacity
  2. Connect to employee accounts and control permissions
  3. Provides rich API, and company development process, system system, improve work efficiency
  4. The data is secure, the internal code is not at risk of leakage, and there is no fear of Trump security controls


If you are interested, try to do some simple thinking about the processes, tools, systems, and architectures that you take for granted in your work


summary

To sum up, we should think about the task at hand according to the STAR principle, turn the task into business, especially pay attention to the formulation of goals and strategies. Many students tend to confuse these two concepts, and then pay more attention to who our users are and what their demands are in the process, which can help us improve the strategy


Tip — Expectations management


I mentioned the importance of weekly reports in the previous article if I was a first-line technical supervisor. It is difficult for a team leader of more than ten people to have the energy to cover everything, understand everyone’s daily details, and find out the right direction and opportunities for everyone. It is difficult for the supervisor to have a chat with you when you have a good idea. Many students’ weekly reports are very perfunctory, that is, they waste their time and the recipients’ time when they send them out. No one in the team will read all the weekly reports carefully, depending on the quality of the weekly reports


Interns should pay more attention to this issue than regular employees. After all, it is the assessment of employees that is once every six months, and they have the opportunity to know their power from distance. However, most interns only have the opportunity to communicate with their supervisors for two or three months, and they almost only have the opportunity to communicate with their supervisors weekly


Why is weekly report so important? Upward management has also been mentioned in the above article. For interns, the most important thing is to do a good job in managing the expectations of the supervisor


Many times at work we are too shy to speak up about our problems and opinions for fear that our boss will think us incompetent or arrogant. But most of the time, the problem is that the supervisor has no expectation of what you do, and any risk will feel like a sudden stimulus. If there is always psychological expectation deviation, you will doubt your ability to work, unable to effectively control the work progress and risk


So make sure you manage your supervisor’s expectations of you and do it

  1. Information transparency: process expectations
  2. Risk warning: risk anticipation
  3. Building trust: Outcome expectations


These supervisors will assign you the work they think is most reasonable and help you solve risks in time, so that you can make more value during the short internship


Pointing north — the most common mistake

I don’t know if that’s true, but I know how to be wrong. I’ve seen too many interns jump into a pit


Task completion mentality

Many students are very satisfied with their work performance during the internship, but when they get a full-time job, they are said to cry by the judges, largely because they regard completing tasks on time as the standard of full marks. They are very devoted when they have tasks, and feel idle when they have no tasks


Be sure to know that completing the assigned tasks in Ali is never a full mark, is a pass! Passing the exam is not the expectation of the team for interns. Interns are expected to play their subjective initiative, see problems, come up with solutions, and even ask the supervisor for resources on a certain problem. It is not necessary for us to work overtime, but we hope that we can feel fulfilled


Summary planning without end

The final part of all powerpoint presentations for job transfers, promotions, projects, etc., is the same — the summary plan. Suggests that this is a very important step, PPT last requires planning is known to all, but many students in doing things at ordinary times will ignore this link, what done is done, no further planning, based on the present, focus on the future but this is the most can reflect a person technical part of the power, do things at ordinary times, this link project less a pity


When it comes to the formal PPT, the planning summary should be carried forward, rather than endless. I have seen many interns with similar template in the last PPT

  1. Deep understanding of business, can be responsible for XXX independently
  2. Learn React, Rax
  3. Understand NodeJS in depth and become an expert on NodeJS


When we watch talent shows and the judges ask you what your dream is, no contestant ever directly says: My dream is to be a star. You look at that and you think it’s crazy, and most of the answers are

  1. How miserable my family is
  2. How hard I worked, how much I wanted
  3. I stand on this stage with the hope of XXX on my back
  4. I hope XXX is proud of me
  5. I want to be a better version of myself


It’s not that you should learn the formula, but that without a context it can be confusing

  1. Why would he think that, have a plan like that?
  2. What will happen after achieving this goal, and what will be the impact on the team and the business?


If I were a judge or a company owner, how would I feel if I heard that the intern plan was to become a NodeJS expert


An ideal pattern (pattern, not template, not routine) would be what are my current problems, what challenges do I see in the future for the business, for the team, and what mismatches do I have in my capabilities, so what do I want to do, and what change do I want to make


Little wish

Welcome everyone to communicate more, can be more or less helpful to intern

Interested in alibaba front-end position can send resume to [email protected], internship, recruitment HC have