From Intern to IT Enthusiast...

At the beginning of 2023, I embarked on my first internship at a large Fintech company, where I had the opportunity to support the Project Management Office (PMO) with their daily tasks. This role allowed me to gain a valuable perspective on the world of IT. During this time, I focused on learning two key areas: project management and the stages of product development through the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). I vividly remember one afternoon when my mentor walked me through the phases of the SDLC: planning, development, testing, acceptance, simulation, and production.

It was also during this internship that I first encountered Jira Kanban boards. I observed how various project teams managed their tasks, tracked issues and bugs, and monitored progress—all on a single screen with multiple columns. I had the chance to sit in on team meetings, where I learned how to ask questions and present opinions, even when there were disagreements. It was a fantastic environment for honing the art of negotiation.

However, my curiosity about how software is actually developed kept growing, which led me to a role in the product development team at a clearing house, where I provided support. Here, I witnessed firsthand how a product is developed in an Agile environment and how different cross-functional teams—such as development, operations, and testing—collaborate seamlessly.

Even then, one question lingered in my mind: What exactly is the "product" these teams are working on, and why is no one referring to it as "software"? To satisfy my curiosity, I posed this question to my manager. She patiently explained that a "product" is essentially a service we are building for our customers, and in this context, these products are referred to as IT applications.

Further exploration led me to understand that what we often call "software" is typically referred to as "applications" in the IT industry. These applications are categorized into Business Applications, Desktop Applications, Infrastructure Applications, and IT Applications. Together, they form the assets of any company. My team was responsible for managing these assets, which can be further classified as company-developed, third-party-developed, commercial off-the-shelf solutions, or software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Being part of product development meetings sparked my interest in digging deeper and connecting the dots between the SDLC and the creation of user-friendly, stable applications. This journey led me to discover that there is a process that turns code into a fully functioning application. The answer to this mystery, I found, lies within the DevOps cycle.

More about DevOps and its transformative impact on software development will be covered in my next blog post.

Until then, happy reading!