The Automatify Internship Experience: A Discussion with our new Colleague Raul

Raul, RPA Developer at Automatify (left) together with Alex, Senior Consultant (right)

As we conclude our RPA summer internship on the UiPath platform, we invited our ex-intern and now colleague Raul to share some thoughts regarding his learning experience. Below is the conversation between Alex, one of our Senior Consultants, and Raul, who will soon be working together on real-world projects and challenges.

Alex: What motivated you to apply for an internship at Automatify?

Raul: I first found out about Automatify at an internships fair at my university. The company held a short presentation about RPA that made me curios to discover more about this technology, after the presentation, I joined their online stand at the fair and attended their workshop. This was the first time I saw some live RPA coding, I downloaded the UiPath Community Edition and, under the guidance of our mentors George and Diana, wrote my first bot, all in a few hours. After the experience at the fair, I was hooked on the technology and really liked the interaction with the Automatify team, so the choice to apply to the program was obvious.

Alex: How did you find our selection process?

Raul: I really liked the selection process as it was different than what I was used to from other companies, namely general IQ and theoretical programming questions. For my application at Automatify, I had to actually build a robot, so it was very practical. I also appreciated that I could apply with just my LinkedIn profile, so I didn’t need to adapt my CV. The robot I built automates playing an online game, which was quite interactive (new UI elements appearing randomly, so I had to come up with generic solutions). After I had submitted my bot, I was invited for an interview where I was asked to explain the technical decisions I made.

All in all, it was by far the most time-consuming application for an internship, but it was fun, so I have no complaints 😊. When I was selected and the guys told me that they had over 60 candidates to choose from, I was proud that all that hard work had paid off.

Video showing the robots that the internship candidates built for their application

Alex: What do you think about RPA now that you’ve had some experience with the technology?

Raul: As a new technology, in my opinion RPA comes with a new face of programming, different from the classic one. For me, the biggest differences were the fact that in RPA there is very little low-level code and that you have visual feedback at every step in the development process. I think that by having no low-level code, RPA allows me as a developer to concentrate more on what matters – the actual business process logic. Also, by having visual feedback, it's allowing me to see more clearly what I've done so far and discover mistakes sooner than in a back-end technology.

So, overall, I think that even though this is a relatively new technology it is already a stable one with a lot of potential and I’m really enjoying my time as an RPA developer. Furthermore, I got a little taste of the whole technological landscape, and I think I will have things to learn for years to come. This a bit of a surprise, because honestly I thought RPA would be easier, but I learnt that you really need to have a good understanding of IT infrastructure and programming principles to write good quality software.

Alex: How was your interaction with the team?

Raul: During the internship, I had the opportunity to work with several colleagues here at Automatify. Even if the most impactful person for me was my mentor George, I can say that I've learned something from other colleagues as well: while at the office, any time I needed help I could just go to someone who had time and ask them, and they would take the time to really explain their thinking process, not just provide a solution.

Alex: What's the most valuable thing you learned during your internship at Automatify?

Raul: One of the most valuable things I've learned during this internship was to have a growth mindset – a concept I learned about in one of the knowledge sharing sessions that resonated strongly with me. I was put so many times in the position to do something I’m not experienced in, and then I overcame the challenge. It was also great to be able to apply my theoretical knowledge in Computer Science to the working world and build on my academic background.

I am now confident that I can achieve everything I want through hard work and implication (and a little help from the right people). Also, I am happy that I have a good overview of the entire UiPath Platform: from Studio, Orchestrator, UiPath Apps, Document Understanding to Data Service and can start building some of the simpler bots that my team is working on.

Alex: What’s next for you?

Raul: I am happy to say that after finishing the internship, I was offered a full-time job here at Automatify which I gladly accepted because I am very convinced that this technology suits me, and I am confident in my abilities to learn and improve in it. Furthermore, I see a lot of career opportunities in Automatify and in RPA in general which I’m excited about. I even started this week working on a customer project together with a more experienced colleague and I’m happy to see that the knowledge I gained from the internship helps me deal with real life problems.

Alex: Thank you Raul for sharing your experience. Good luck, and I’m looking forward to working together with you.