Hello everyone, today is the last day of my Internship at Goibibo and it’s been an amazing journey.
I could not think of any better way than to share my prodigious journey at this amazing company and also to preserve these two most memorable months of my life.
So here is a short but amazing insight into my journey at go-mmt. Hope you enjoy it.😀
My first day started with the orientation program, where all the interns and new hires took part in various activities, through which we got to know each other. Thanks to Mrs. Sakshi Sharma, our orientation concluded with an awesome scavenger hunt.
The next day was the one where I got acquainted with the technology team working on the Goibibo Android Application. Needless to say, I was super excited, and a bit nervous to meet them since it was my chance to be learning from some of the brightest minds in the industry. I would like to shout-out a special thanks to my mentor, Mr. Chandrapal Yadav(Engineer Manager), my manager, Mr. Shashwat Sinha(Senior Engineer Manager), and to the entire team, I had the privilege of working with.
Let’s get down to understanding some of the technical stuff I worked upon. So, I suggest you guys sit tight and enjoy!
Project 1
Problem: Goibibo, like every other application publisher, has to go through the process of publishing updates to the Google Play Store. These updates and any new features take varying amounts of time to reach the masses because of the obvious hindrance, which is either for the Play Store to automatically update the app, which literally takes days before getting installed, or expecting the user to go to the Goibibo play store page to download an update. Thus, the aim was to provide an update to the user inside the Goibibo app about the new features he would unlock access to post updating the app, and in turn, improve the overall user experience. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
Solution: Google has started providing an API to facilitate In-App Updates for the application. Thus, my task was to explore the feasibility and quality of the API and ultimately implement it in the Goibibo Android Application.
My first few days went into studying about the API and implementing it on a demo application. I faced a few issues during implementation, some of which were resolved with the help of Mr. Abhishek Luthra(Senior Software Engineer in Ibibo Android Team), while a few required me to explore the web. I even found a couple of bugs in Google’s documentation, which had to be reported to their Issue Tracker. I was eventually able to present a working demo, once these issues were resolved by Google.
I was now ready to integrate this API in the Goibibo application. It was a huge learning opportunity, and an eye-opener, to work on their main codebase. I learned about the various programming practices and patterns, which if followed diligently, ensure lucid code and optimal performance. I was quickly able to integrate this into the main application. After that, just when I thought my task was over, I was presented with the next phase in development, one which I had rarely focused on — Testing.
Thorough testing required me to generate various cases which could lead to possible app crashes or abrupt behaviors. After spending a couple of days on it, the release finally went out. I was so proud of myself that day :P
Project 2
My second task was to show Dynamic banners(which varied according to links clicked by the user) on the login screen of Goibibo Android application under the guidance of Mr. Vivek Walecha who is Technical Lead in Mobile Android Team. Branch.io provides deferred deep links, which facilitates the user to access the precise contents of the application on just a click. My first few days went going through the documentation of Branch.io, after which I started to implement it. During the implementation, I faced a few issues due to which the required flow was not working as expected but with thorough debugging, the issue got resolved. After the implementation was over then again came Testing :P. I started testing the application to generate cases which could lead to issues or abrupt behaviors. After the testing was over, Vivek Sir reviewed my work and the release finally went live.
Project 3
My third task was to revamp the Goibibo’s home screen of the Android app along with Mr. Abhishek Luthra. The key highlights of this task were:
- I learned and followed the MVVM architecture pattern for revamping the home screen.
- We used Firebase to store and retrieve data for the screen.
- I designed various custom views for the screen, implemented using the RecyclerView.
Currently, the task is under testing. Sadly, I could not be a part of it as my internship has ended. 😕
Hopefully, the work will be live in a couple of days.
Knowledge Sessions at Goibibo
One wondrous knowledge session was with Hadi Hariri himself, the keynote speaker of KotlinConfig 2018. It was so remarkable to watch him delivering an amazing session on Kotlin and on some of its key features.
Fun Part
Having discussed a lot about work, let’s move on to the fun stuff. :P
I was one of the lucky interns who attended the GO-MMT Town Hall Meet(THM), where the Go-Trippers gather together with the A-Team. THM is one of the best meets I have ever been to. At THM, a number of cultural activities are performed by some of our talented Go-Tripper’s. There are tech discussions and talks by the A-Team. Finally, we had an awesome DJ, where everyone danced their hearts out.
Overview of my Internship experience
To sum, I would say that these two months were the most memorable ones of my life. Not only did I gain a ton of experience and industry-level knowledge but also made really great friends who helped me learn and enjoy. The atmosphere and the resonant workspace here was so lively that it made me feel comfortable and easy to set in. One great thing I found was the ease of access to just approach any colleague, and their readiness to assist you. If given a chance to come back I would definitely grab the opportunity without a second thought.
The Best Summer of my Life :D
My Internship Experience at go-mmt, Gurgaon-2019 was originally published in Backstage on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.