At Neighborhoods.com, professional and personal growth are both highly valued. We believe in providing our employees with the resources and knowledge they need to succeed in their careers, especially when it comes to our interns.
Nate Alvarado, a Software Engineering Intern here since October 2017, shares how he is growing in his role and provides future interns with helpful advice.
What led you to apply to the company?
When I was searching for an internship, I was looking on Glassdoor for companies that had great reviews tagged along with them. When I saw that Neighborhoods.com not only had a position I was looking for but also a whopping 4.9/5.0, I thought it was surely a typo or an error. I had never seen a company score so high. Finding a position that I thought would help me grow my professional career as well as a culture that would allow me to thrive, I hit that apply button.
What do you enjoy most about interning here?
I love the people that I work with. It’s not often that you can meet one person and have it be as if you were lifelong friends, let alone having an entire office feel like you have always been friends. It’s awesome that if there is ever a question or any other type of support that is needed, someone can always help you out.
What are some of your duties?
I help map new multiple listing service (MLS) data fields with our local fields. This includes going through each field in the MLS, comparing their data with ours and naming the fields accordingly. I also generate closures in PHP to consume data from each MLS. These closures are to format the data properly so that it can be accessed easily from our database. After that, I run tests on the MLS closures I have created with live data to see if my closures are getting errors or if the data doesn’t look the way we want it to.
What is something new that you have learned here?
The different stages and moving parts of the development process for the work my team does. It is really cool to see an MLS that I have started and handed off being put into production
How is this internship preparing you for your career?
It is helping me become a better developer by letting me work on real work applications. I find that working on projects that will actually be used in our product is a great motivator to put in that extra mile of effort. Since I am working in the industry, I feel like I can pick up new things easier as time goes on.
Favorite area/perk of the office?
My favorite part of the office is hands down the kitchen. That's the spot for conversation and a good laugh with whoever’s around.
What are your hobbies/interests outside of work?
As I am a student, I wish I still had hobbies. The only thing that I can still manage to do to is go to the gym, then relax, recover, and get back to the grind. One of my favorite interests is architecture. My brother brings friends of his from out of town so that I can give them (and him) private tours around the city of Chicago.
Any secret/unique skills?
The mood I am always in is achieved without the use of coffee or any other caffeinated beverage.
What advice would you give to future interns?
Do not be afraid to ask questions! You are an intern! If you already knew everything that was being put in front of you, then you would have a full-time position. With that being said, always try to impress yourself with what you are capable of and try and go above and beyond what is expected from you
