Today, I was terminated but I’m actually super glad. (I accidentally broke their app but also the database connection string is broken and I don’t believe that one is my fault).
It was unpaid and predatory by nature.
I was the only technical person on the team-- internship means there would be mentorship and there was nobody to mentor me or help me along the way.
Sure I probably look terrible to someone I genuinely really like, but hey that’s life.
If I kept doing this for free I think I would crash and burn (no 1 again).
It is okay. I failed hard. But now I know what I need to do.
Something is maybe broken on my end because their app works just fine on my end for some reason???
A lot was asked of me and I was a beginner and nobody was there to honestly guide me well because again only technical person there.
I was able to revert my changes easily…and nothing was lost. It’s easy to freak out when you may not know how it works but it was still weird.
It sounds like a lot was asked of you, but you didn’t receive much in the way of support.
Hopefully you both learnt a lot of things. Like an employer not relying on just one intern to do all the heavy lifting by themselves.
Sometimes things like this can happen in business, when things are done without much planning. A lot of times, in the past anyway, plans are sketched on napkins - even for buildings and prototypes. It teaches skilled builders patience and humility when things backfire.
Don’t forget to thank the person who gave you the intern opportunity. Make sure it sounds genuine, you never know, your paths may cross again. Probably not, but you don’t want them to bad mouth you to others.
Interning is about gaining experience and exposure to an industry’s way of doing things. Seems like you gained a bit of knowledge about yourself and some of the realities of working for a business.
If they want to bad mouth me, I don’t see how I wouldn’t be able to defend myself? It’s already scary to hand an entire repo to a newbie and have them be the only technical person . I have no hard feelings against them, but it was a bit weird because I was removed from everything without an email except for a text. I thanked them and I’m moving on.
Funny because I just got an email from my personal favorite singer saying they would consider my offer for making a website. Life is strange.
It seems like some non-technical leadership unintentionally overwhelmed you with tasks above your level of skill and experience. Non-programmers often underestimate the amount of programming language diversity it takes to build applications. They simply assume you either know how to code or not, and don’t really understand the skillset needed to work on and build an application with a full tech stack.
Don’t be afraid to tell them your limitations! Making it clear what you can and cannot do will make it easier and safer for both parties in the long run, even if it feels a little humbling sometimes : )
Now, they put you in a terrible position, an intern without a mentor figure to interact with is like a fish out of water, I don’t know what they were thinking. And then they were not even paying you, so they are really not valuing the programming knowledge needed to make an app work.
From what I’ve read of your networking approach and passion for web development, I’m betting you’ll land someplace where you are valued. You seem to be resilient…someone who will always land on their feet.
Probably but I honestly thought somebody would guide me (like a senior dev or CTO idk) and tell me to pull request–then they check it. blah blah dev stuff…not a newbie slashing a repo…They got terrified bc apparently I left the app blank when it had so much data on it–then got angry? Then I did an old fashion git revert hard SHA and then everything went back to normal nothing was lost…like that was wild and it’s easy to freak out over nothing when you don’t know how git works…
The app was vibe coded and there were a ton of files so as a newbie who was more so a website enthusiast with some backend knowledge it was hard to navigate so I really wish there was a technical senior dev/CTO person to actually mentor but…welp.
IT seems they don’t value programming at all because most of their products were actually vibe coded and then they kept saying after I broke the app that they would repair it with Claude Code (when I can literally did git revert and everything went back to normal…and I did do this).
I actually am glad I am out because my beliefs do not align with theirs. I have seen how data centers in America lower property value and take homes away from people so with them having heavy ai usage and even using ai to change the way women look, I cannot stand for that and stay. It was great timing. It was just jarring to see and I do believe they think ai will replace coders (that’s not happening but that’s their belief).
Thank you! I hope she says yes but it’s okay if no-- it was so awesome to talk to my favorite singer anyway and have her say she thought my work was beautiful!
I was the only technical person on the team-- internship means there would be mentorship and there was nobody to mentor me or help me along the way
This is the last red flag, and hopefully a solid lesson.
If you aren’t getting paid, you need to get something at a minimum you get some experience and mentorship.
If you don’t find mentorship you aren’t really in an internship but rather a volunteer role. There’s plenty of opportunities to volunteer in life and gain experience from a supportive community there to help you do the work and learn something (cough freeCodeCamp itself).
Thanks for the post, its an interesting position to be in. It sounds like you are ready to move on and take with you the lessons you learned! Experience is experience!
Yes that’s true. I already knew the red flags going in but i was so star struck so that sucks. It will be a very funny story to tell down the road though. “Everything is deleted you got rid of everything!!!” (Git reverts)
I was once filling ceramic tile joints when I was a beginner in the construction indrusty and the day after my boss told me the joint color is not correct, but it was already dried.
It turned out it was really my fault to mix two different colors together, so I had to spent a whole day to remove all joint in the bathroom, but I asked how to pay for the loss of the company and my boss told me he just writes a holiday for this day, so I don´t have to worry, nor pay for the joint and my money is not lost too, because the holiday pay is a bit higher then the salary.
He said: “Everyone fails and you will do much bigger failers in the future anyway, so why to worry? As long it can be fixed, then we fix it and we move on. We are builders, right? You fixed the joint correctly, so you are a builder now.”
You correctly expected to build something together with others and ended up fixing others problem and even solved it as an intern.
You should be proud of yourself and don´t forget the red flags you learned, I think you have perfectly analyzed this situation already, they didn´t earned you.
Thank you these are very kind words and your story is actually exactly how it is meant to be and a great example of a boss that is very understanding and knows that newbies will make mistakes. It is okay. I fixed it anyway because I didn’t want them to make it worse with claude code lol.