My Job Shadowing Experience at Code for SA

In July we hosted a young, highly motivated high school student as a job shadower. John Claude has a keen interest in programming and his time with us made it possible to add faceting to the search on OpenBylaws.org.za. Thanks for joining us, John!

Here’s what John had to say about his experience…

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My job shadowing experience at Code for SA was the best job shadowing experience so far, after having done job shadowing at 4 different organisations. It was very simple to get in touch with someone, Greg Kempe, from the organisation. Greg was friendly and down to earth in all his emails. This welcoming attitude made me look forward to working there. The first thing I immediately noticed when I visited their offices was the welcoming and friendliness of the people who work there. There was a feeling of togetherness, if one can call it that, among the workers. I really liked how they encouraged and implemented social interaction and participation among the workers through activities such as the weekly yoga classes and breakfasts.

Why I wanted to job shadow

I believe that it is crucial for all young people to go out there and get an experience of what it is like to work in the fields and industries that they want to work in before they go to varsity and study for those fields. This gives them the opportunity to get first-hand experience of what life is like in those fields. It gives them the chance to make the decision about whether they would enjoy working in those fields before they waste all the time and money in varsity studying something which they would later regret in life. I wanted the full experience of what it is like to work as a developer.

What I enjoyed most

What I really enjoyed was that for once I was treated as one of the developers and not just as a learner doing job shadowing. I was given the opportunity to contribute to an actual, working website which I enjoyed. This gave me a chance to really put into practice my coding skills and knowledge. From the first day, I learnt new things such as the different applications that they use, ways to accomplish more while writing less code, how to debug my code on Chrome and many more things which will help me on my road to becoming a successful developer. I received valuable advice from industry professionals and enthusiasts. I really enjoyed spending my time there and it was such a wonderful experience.

Were the people helpful?

Absolutely! I really loved the fact that I was given the opportunity to first tackle a problem on my own and learn from that. When I couldn’t figure out a solution, Greg and Damian were very helpful and many times, inspirational. This opportunity helped me sharpen my problem-solving skills.

Other notes

I also liked the fact that this organisation is very different from other software companies out there in that they work on applications that deal with open data which I personally think helps to get much needed and important information to the public in a way that is easy for them to understand and use. The Open Bylaws website is a good example of that. This was a wonderful experience that far exceeded my expectations and one which I will treasure. My thanks go out to Damian, Greg and everyone at code for SA. This is definetly one of the best tech companies out there.