"Lexity – the best company" - Tomas Halgas, Oxford UK (Intern, 2012)

Intern = "Extra"++"ordinaire"; Tomas Halgas

From the heart of Europe comes Tomas; from the heart of Tomas comes code. In (very scarce) spare time Tomas plays music, tennis and computer games... and very importantly, explores the world... (of code?)

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Hello, I am Tomas, a proud ex-intern extraordinaire of Lexity.

I come from Slovakia and I am currently a student of Mathematics and Computer Science in the University of Oxford, just about to commence my second undergraduate year. That means I should stay in shape over the summer.

To prevent getting too much rest and to keep my brain stimulated, I decided to take up a summer internship. For anything having to do with code, Silicon Valley was a clear destination (and I would finally dry my clothes from the British rain). Perhaps it was the name of the university, or easy interview questions, or just luck, but I have managed to get into the most awesome company in Silicon Valley, Lexity.

THE most awesome; where else would you have free food and drinks (including free Dove bars), afternoon ping pong tournaments, sessions of mathematics behind the card game ‘Spot It!’ and then playing the game (notice how the maths precedes the playing), a bowling outing, truly comfortable couches, great enthusiastic people and a project exactly suiting your needs and wants?

As a project, I wanted to build something new, useful even outside the company, where I could use my academic knowledge in practice and learn something new. I wanted a challenge.

In this most awesome of companies, I got to lay the base of an API system, which will soon be used by 3^rd party app developers. It consists of server-side data retrieval and response formatting and a client-side ruby gem and an unbelievably long documentation.

It required lots of modularisation and abstraction, which I knew from the university, and I have learned a lot about communication between servers, authentication and security. I have learned two new languages, learned how to use code repositories and how code deployment is done, and a lot about how software engineering is done in the real world.

Hours of literature reading, hours of coding, hours of documenting.

Exactly the kind of project I wished for.

I couldn’t be more satisfied, and I sincerely thank Amit and the whole Lexity team for providing me with such unique, enriching experience. Lexity is the best.

And tell me; where else will you have a chance to take part in company treasure hunting? Point proven. Q.E.D.

- Tomas