Interns of UiPath: Learning Experience During a Pandemic

“Everything I learned during this internship was new and very interesting. It is very special for a student to use their theoretical knowledge for a practical project, and to know that will be used all over the world. Besides the new technical knowledge that I found, I learned from my teammates how to be a team player”, says Georgiana Ionescu, who worked with our Orchestrator engineering team.

One of the best things about internships is that while you learn you get to create connections, gain experience and sometimes land your dream job. In this article you will learn more about our interns’ experience during this year’s Internship Program at UiPath in Bucharest and Cluj. “Unlike other companies, at UiPath successful ideas come in a relaxing but productive atmosphere” says Ioana Zaman, Robot Team.

Like most of the companies, we had to adapt to a new working environment due to the global pandemic. We designed a program that allowed our interns to work virtually from the comfort of their home. We had seven bright students invited to work side by side with our engineering team.

They were part of our Robot, Orchestrator, Studio, Intelligent OCR and DevTest Engineering teams. “At first I mostly dealt with understanding the product. I exchanged various ideas with team colleagues about programming, and the daily sessions helped me to integrate better in the team. Working on my own task, always-on processes, helped me understand the functioning of the project on a deeper level. The main idea of the project was to give the user the possibility to set via a button if they want a certain process to restart continuously” shares Ioana Zaman.

During their 12-weeks internships our interns faced a lot of challenges, but they also got the chance to test their technical knowledge, working closely with our engineers. “I was part of the Orchestrator application team and worked with five talented and professional software engineers. I am grateful for the wonderful team I was part of. They were very friendly and willing to help me whenever I encountered difficulties in solving tasks. I had the opportunity to work like them on the company's application and to solve tasks” says Georgiana Ionescu.

Our interns also worked on a special project they each had in mind for this period. It was even more fulfilling for them to see that their project was added to our product. “I worked on the front-end side of the Intelligent OCR team. The first month was all about getting to know the company culture. Later, I had the opportunity to contribute to bugs and features on the product which gave me a good insight of the real workflow inside the team. In the last week we went ahead with the actual project that was in mind for my internship, which is a rewrite and redesign of the Taxonomy Manager which can be found in the Intelligent OCR package.” Ioana Gheorghiu was part of the Engineering team in Cluj, Romania.

Our Internship Program allows our interns to solve real problems and work with our product. It was designed to prepare interns to work and give their best in any tech company out there. “Even though I was an intern, I had the honor of working on tasks that will be visible in the new version of the Orchestrator application. I was very challenged, because I was aware that my work would have a real impact on the final application” says Georgiana Ionescu.

While some of them got to work on a specific product, others had to interact with all teams and contribute to different projects. “My team has a more special position in the development department. We do not work on a single project but interact with most of them. Thus, my attention was not focused on something specific. I received various tasks in different products. For example, I have worked at the pipeline level, I have integrated various end-to-end test monitoring functionalities such as videos or system performance reports. I created and deployed resources in the Azure portal. I automated a manual process of obtaining, processing, and displaying metrics of projects in a desired platform. I was a chameleon!”, says Ramona Stefan, who worked side by side with our DevTesting Engineering team.

Adjusting our internship to make it virtual was not an easy task. It made it a bit challenging for our interns too, as they had to meet new people and learn a new technology virtually. “A virtual internship was a challenge for me. Like every challenge, it comes with both advantages and obstacles. Some pro points would be the flexibility of the program and the time saved on the way to the office. This way, I had more time to enjoy my hobbies and the people I care about. On the other hand, I strongly believe that virtual communication could never replace face-to-face conversation. Despite receiving a lot of help and attention from my colleagues, I think that the accommodation and the process of onboarding could have been faster if the situation was different” says Ramona Stefan.

Our interns found the virtual experience challenging but interesting at the same time. All of them are looking forward to meeting their colleagues in person. "Obviously, a big con of having a virtual internship is the lack of human interaction. It is wonderful to be surrounded by colleagues at work, to be able to interact with them, to see a smile or to talk to them during a coffee break. In addition, I think when you are an intern and have many questions, curiosities and even difficulties in completing tasks, it is more effective to be with your colleagues in the office. On the other hand, an advantage of the virtual internship is the time saved because you are permanently at home and the opportunity to work easily with people from other locations” says Georgiana Ionescu.

Learning was also a big part of their experience. “I could list a lot of things I learned on the technical side, from working with cloud services and resources, to working with unknown technologies for me like C# or Typescript. However, I think the most important thing I learned was to really understand the process of automation and to develop a sense of search for it.  One skill that I think people working for companies like UiPath should have is to identify repetitive situations and automate them. It is impossible to say that I acquired this ability in such a very short time, but certainly these months have aroused my interest and desire to pay more attention to my daily activities. Maybe I was wasting time where I should not have” says Ramona Stefan.

Before we go, we just have to share how happy we are to have all our interns continue to work with us as part of the Engineering team. Their contribution will help us achieve our ambitious purpose.