In this blog we follow Callum Halton, a second year Engineering graduate at Homerton College, during his 6-week software internship this Summer at Cambridge Kinetics.
What did the internship involve?
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but was hoping to improve my software development and collaboration skills – I wasn’t disappointed! My first day was spent learning more about Cambridge Kinetics itself and hearing about the launch of their new product, Kinabase, a system for managing business information. Businesses can spend considerable time and consulting fees on configuring their systems and Kinabase aims to make configuration as efficient as possible. My main project over the course of my internship was overhauling and improving this initial configuration where users create relational databases called ‘Collections’ for the various types of data tracked by their businesses.
Originally the interface for adding Collections only allowed them to be input one at a time and didn’t offer help beyond the online support documentation. My first step was to split the collection-adding-flow into smaller, more accessible steps, to make setup simpler and quicker for users. I then used a type of artificial intelligence model called an LLM to provide suggested Collections and suggested configurations for those Collections in response to the user’s business needs as expressed in a prompt. This greatly reduced the amount of database schema design the user needs to do.
What kind of software skills did you use?
I learnt a great deal about working as part of a small and agile development team and how to collaborate effectively using GitHub and other tools.
I also improved my skills in the following areas:
- Reading and improving components with highly abstracted interfaces.
- Adapting and reusing others’ existing code within a new context.
- Using C# and .NET frameworks for server-side development.
- Implementation of GraphQL APIs.
- Writing complex data cleaning and validation algorithms.
- Handling state in UI components with many modes & phases of operation.
- The basics of prompt engineering
- Performing large Git merges
What were the highlights of your time at Cambridge Kinetics?
I found this hands-off approach enabled me to develop my project management skills and to become more self-sufficient!
I thoroughly enjoyed working as part of the team and particularly appreciated the high degree of autonomy and responsibility I was given from day one. I was also very pleased with the free team lunches which were a great opportunity to get to know my colleagues better! Brain-storming design solutions with Jason and Thomas was particularly helpful, they didn’t hesitate to challenge flaws in my ideas, which helped me to hone my design skills and make more progress in my work.
Cambridge Kinetics really encouraged me to contribute my own approaches to designs, and being able to follow these through from UX to implementation and testing was an amazing insight into software development in industry. I really valued the company’s emphasis on “doing things properly”, something I wasn’t sure I would find in a start-up.
Upon completing each job, I also had the opportunity to discuss the next feature I was going to work on. This was refreshing compared to the more traditional push-based model, where tasks are assigned with fixed deadlines and limited discussion on allocation. I found this hands-off approach enabled me to develop my project management skills and to become more self-sufficient!
I really enjoyed my first role as a professional Developer – including work-from-home Wednesdays and the generous provision of caffeine and snacks! Coming into the office felt more like an opportunity than a chore, it was a pleasure to work with a fun, easy-going group of like-minded people who were always more than happy to offer engineering guidance and advice.