I was fortunate enough to talk to a friend of my sisters, Leigh, who works as a full stack software engineer at a start up company in Columbus, Aver Inc. Aver Inc works with healthcare companies to simplify and increase efficiency in their technology systems. Full stack engineers essentially work on both the front end and back end aspects of an application.
Talking with Leigh about her work as a software engineer at Aver was very insightful. Job descriptions of software engineers are usually very vague in terms of their responsibilities so it was helpful just listening to what she does day to day. Furthermore, the interview opened up a new option that I had never considered before: start ups. For the most part, most of the companies I had applied to already for internships were very large and established companies, which I assume would have a different work culture compared to a smaller start up. From Leigh’s experience in start ups (an internship in a start up in college and her current job), she’s had a lot of opportunities to learn different things because her job requires her to take tasks as they come and her work is determined by what is needed. As a person who does not enjoy restrictions on their schedule and enjoys challenges as they come, working in start-ups sounds very ideal to me. This does not mean the workload is light by any means–Leigh even mentioned that her work is very demanding a lot of the times. But if I ever do venture into working with start ups, I will anticipate and look forward to the challenge