Hanne was a Young Graduate in Software Engineering at Twipe between 2020 and 2022 and is now a Tech Lead in our Data & AI team.
Almost a year has passed since I joined Twipe as a Young Graduate in Software Engineering. Having graduated as an Electrical Engineer at KU Leuven, this career move might not sound like a very logical step at first. But include an Advanced Masters in Artificial Intelligence and a never-ending interest in software (my Bachelor minor was Computer Science), and it might become a little bit more clear!
As graduation approaches, many students have a hard time figuring out what kind of job they want to do. Well, I was one of them. As mentioned earlier, software was the way I wanted to go but even within software there were many possibilities. When I found the Young Graduate programme at Twipe, it felt like I had encountered the perfect solution: a 2-year programme in an IT company where I could explore the different faces of a software platform throughout multiple projects. I applied, went through the selection process and am very glad to now call myself a Twipee.
In my first – and current – project, I am working on our personalised recommendation system JAMES. Here, I learned how to work with innovating technologies such as Terraform and the AWS services. From day one I have been a full-fledged member of the team, being included in design sessions, decision making and client meetings.
Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, I quickly got up to speed thanks to the great help and guidance of my collegues. Soon, I started making my own impact. For example, within the JAMES project we prepare data insight sessions for our clients in order to review the performance of our different predictive models. This means deep diving into data, extracting conclusions and presenting them to stakeholders. The direct link with the customer is rewarding and allows me to see the direct results of our work.
After almost a year, I am preparing to transfer to the next project within the Young Graduate programme: the Front-End Apps team. This will be quite a different switch, but I am excited about expanding my skill set with React Native and contributing to an other aspect of Twipe.
Aside from the stimulating and varying projects Twipe has to offer, the daily company spirit is a big positive. As a rather extraverted person, my daily working environment was an important factor when looking for a job. Within the first few weeks, it became clear that Twipe offers a great combination of a driven working climate and exciting collegues. Evidence of both can also be found outside of working hours.
When I joined Twipe for three months, it became clear many people were missing the pre-COVID culture of after-work kicker and drinks. Even though I was still a newcomer at the time, I proposed to put together a Team Building squad for organising COVID-proof fun activities. When reaching out to my colleagues for interested people to join this squad, almost half of the company decided to join. I can only see this as proof of three of Twipe’s company values: “Entrepreneurship”, “Fun and Excitement” and “Teamwork”.
So let me briefly summarise by looking back on the past twelve months. I graduated university, decided to take a leap and ended up in a place full of possibilities where I feel appreciated and encouraged every day. When I see all of the things I learned and achieved in the past year, I can’t wait to find out what the second year of my Young Graduate programme will bring!
Want to apply for our next Young Graduate Programme? Find out more here.
