On starting my HNG internship, the first thing we were tasked with was reflecting and sharing a recent challenge we’ve had. The most recent challenge I can remember was when I was tasked with creating a simple ticketing system, a site where users could purchase tickets for a fitness event. The task in itself wasn’t hard I simply integrated paystack for payments and used the default Laravel mailing system to send mails to users who purchased tickets successfully. The task in itself was simple but the problem was finding a free hosting platform for Laravel projects.
I tried a few platforms and combed the web but I just couldn’t find a solution within the given deadline so decided to rebuild the entire project with Express. For those that don’t know Laravel works with PHP while Express works with JavaScript, two different languages. In less than two days I was done converting the entire project from Laravel to Express, but I still wanted to use MySQL for the database, so I used Sequelize to connect with my database. All seemed fine I found free platforms to host the project but they didn’t support MySQL, again I had to alter the project to work with MongoDB this meant I had to plan carefully and rework how the data was stored, but it was a challenge I enjoyed. It definitely made me a better backend developer and helped me understand databases way better.
The deadline for the project was tight, which put me under a lot of pressure but it also forced me to get creative and solve problems fast. Every hurdle I jumped over was a chance to learn and grow, and it showed me how backend development is always changing and evolving.
I opted for the HNG internship because I heard it’s a place to do hard things which reminded me of my time in the ALX SE program where we were encouraged to do hard things. I see this as a stepping stone in my career as a software engineer, I get to work with a team and contribute to projects that make a difference. Would you like to do same? You can find out more about the HNG internship on their website