Internship at Virtusa

Before we get into how my internship went with Virtusa or how I got in to the organization. Let’s take a look at what an internship is.

Why it Matters ?

In my opinion, an internship is the ideal test ground to understand what you really want to do as a career and learn how exactly your domain of interest works. Consider it a trial use of an app before you really purchase it.

Virtusa ?

Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ) is a multinational company based in America, APAC and EMEA. It is known for being a provider in IT outsourcing, digital business transformation and engineering. As of November 26th, 2018, Virtusa serves over 2000 clients in the domains such as banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, telecommunications, media, entertainment, travel, manufacturing, and technology.

Source : Virtusa

Boring part…

My first developer memory goes back to the first version of visual basic.I loved developing stuff for people to use. Fast forward == > Back in 2015, the first year of my G.C.E Advanced level began. My daily routine went on like,

Wake up at 3.30 AM Go to school and workout Swim Squad practices for 4 hours Have breakfast Go to class (slept during class) Some days go for extra classes or swimming again and etc.

Basically, this was pretty boring. I wasn’t learning anything new or interesting. I had been reminded daily by my father, that if I do not study well and get into university, there is no future for me. This kept on triggering in my mind every day. One day I questioned myself and started looking at options. Just before our final school vacation, we had a long holiday. That year I decided to drop out of high school to purse my life as a software engineer. I started doing a diploma equivalent (accepted by private education bodies in Sri Lanka).

Might be interesting

Moving forward, I visited an exhibition that was held in Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (B.M.I.C.H) annually. There I found out the possible options and selected a feasible opportunity in Education. While scraping through the entire exhibition, I found the recruitment fair. Many undergraduates from universities taking up exams & interviews attended this particular fair. I walked around and asked recruiters, if I could join their organization and do an internship. (Only sharing the details as I have completed G.C.E Ordinary Levels with 1A) 90% of the recruiters said No ! or come back once you’ve completed high school. I didn’t give up just yet, I kept on asking till I met the Manager - Talent Acquisition of Virtusa. He asked me “what makes you think you can work with us?”. I explained to him my previous encounters with few projects and how I gradually moved from VB => Java => C++ => .Net. He was willing to give me a chance. . He asked recruiter from the company & a technical lead to talk with me. After a long conversation, they scheduled me for an interview.

Faced the music

I went in the day of the interview with my limited knowledge on software development. Once I got there, the recruiter took me in to a meeting room full of university undergraduates from local universities (I was the drop out). I was lost, the recruiter gave me a paper and asked me to answer it. Fortunately it was an IQ examination. I took my time and completed the paper.

First Interview (4th July 2016)

After a week, Virtusa contacted me to come in for an interview. I had no clue on what exactly I was preparing for. Therefore, I practiced bits and pieces from everything. I went in for the interview. The interview panel asked me, why I wanted to work with them(they were shocked to hear a dropout trying to work with them). They asked some of the most fundamental questions in software development like printing patterns, OOP practices & concepts where I struggled but managed to give adequate answers. Few questions later, the interview panel started asking me about .Net. I was good at .Net and I answered all the questions. Unfortunately, the panel was in search of a Java resource and decided not to go with me as a potential Java resource. After this interview I gave up my idea on Virtusa and applied for few other places.

Interview (The last week of July 2016)

Next week I got an email which asked me to attend another interview at Virtusa. This apparently became full .Net interview. I was asked about web services, design patterns & TSQL which I managed to answer pretty easily.(I was unable to answer one question).

Interview Highlight

I was asked about something called “Angular JS”, precisely weather I was good at it. My answer was I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it is, but I would love to learn that . I think, this was the statement that secured my entry to the company.

HR Interview

They asked me about Virtusa and how I got to know about the place. I passed this interview and I was in. The next step was to fill a booklet of documents.

Coffee with N&N

First week was really boring but it was also quite exciting as it’s was a new culture. We had tour around the IT City. I also sat for the HR, Governance & Compliance exams and finally the fire marshals’ training. We were notified of the remuneration and the contract specifics (transport allowance).

First Week

One of the youngest Software Engineering Interns of VirtusaPolaris, I was involved as a Full Stack developer in the Project GoWireless. There was big learning curve for me since I had not worked with real time deployments, an actual business domain, version controlling and technical documentation. The challenge was to learn & explore the application while implementing the requirements with Angular JS. (Note: this was almost a decade old project which was migrating to the latest stack at the time). During my time in the project I got hands on experience with the .Net framework and it’s components. I was also trained to do technical documentation.

Software Engineering lost it’s appeal… My ideal understanding of a Software Engineer was

A person who creates their own applications (with their own ideas) using their skillset to make life easier, but after working in the above project I figured that it was not so wonderful.

Basically, client gave requirements to our project manager then he delegated them to the tech lead for a feasibility study and finally it is delegated to us. We (developers) don’t question as per say we just deliver the requirements. This was boring! One infinite loop with solutions on stack overflow & MSDN. It’s was not so exciting. Therefore, Software Engineering gradually lost its appeal to me.

Applications Infrastructure Intern Other than my technical expertise, I represented the company in the President’s Challenge Trophy Mercantile Swimming Championship 2016.

First Swimming Squad of the Company

To be very honest, I had minute understanding of Systems, Networking or Infrastructure how they really worked so I wanted to learn it. Therefore, I made a request to HR. To make a transfer to the Application Infrastructure team. It was one of the best decision I’ve made. I got a really experienced, qualified & professional as my reporting manager. He basically taught me from scratch to real time system implementation, networking, monitoring etc (Cloud Related).Other than the above, I assisted an ongoing development project(Proactive Checklists for the Infrastructure Team). I got exposure from a project management perspective starting from meeting minutes to the domain’s knowledge.

GoWireless Package DTC

Through thick & thin

I had met a few friends from IIT who were working at Virtusa. These people were really good at their subject matter. They were the most chilled out people I’ve met from the rest of interns at Virtusa. Every day, I would have lunch with my friends & I soon grew to understand why my dad recommended IIT to pursue my higher education. Long story short my internship wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t met these people.

IITIANS GoKarting Month 2

Summary

Virtusa is a great company if your objectives are to learn & grow, but if your objective is to make a living while doing the aforementioned maybe not. As for the internship, I must mention that it’s not an easy task to function in the corporate environment amongst 2000 + professionals (just in Sri Lanka), but if you are up to date with the latest tech stack and if you know your way around with it, the internship would help you to stand amongst the crowd. Also, I’ve heard that Virtusa’s remunerations are bad. I somewhat agree on this but also choose to disagree because of the brand value the company imparts on your Résumé. I can personally attest to the fact recruiters will not hesitate to consider your application when they see the name Virtusa on your Résumé.

Review… (Based on observations)

• Work - Life Balance : Depends on your Project.
• Personal Growth : Depends on your skill.
• Remunerations : LOW
• Visibility : LOW
• Extra Curricular Activities : Toastmasters , Swimming, Basketball, Badminton, Table Tennis, Chess & Rugby
• Recreational Activities : Pool , gamming & etc

Acknowledgement : I’m writing this after 2 years from the date of completing my internship. Therefore, the mentioned facts or facets may have changed in the present.

Note: I have not been paid to promote the below organization nor will have any gain from writing this post other than sharing my experience.

Non-Disclosure : I will not be discussing specifics on projects, infrastructure or individuals.