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Dasha Luna I̶n̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ Full-time WordPress Engineer

Posted on in News

We’ve been running paid internships for the past few years and they’ve always proven to be a great way to find & nurture promising up-and-comers. This year we were lucky enough to welcome Dasha on a 3 month paid internship as a WordPress Engineer. Dasha really impressed everyone with her technical skill-set, her passion and her overall awesome attitude to work & life. Through the internship she quickly graduated to working directly on the team delivering an important client project where she excelled. It was quickly obvious to everyone that Dasha would be a great fit at Human Made and so I was delighted when Dasha completed her Internship and agreed to join us full-time. Welcome Dasha! – Tom Willmot, CEO.

Magic does exist and dreams do come true! For me, this was getting an internship with Human Made. I’ve worked as a freelance WordPress developer for five years and have learnt a lot, but wanted to move into more advanced areas. Easier said than done. When you’re a one person band you end up getting small to medium size projects where you re-iterate, more or less similar functionality. That’s when I realised that it was time to join a “big fish”, Human Made (and I mean it with all warmness!).

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After arranging and rearranging some preliminary Skype calls, I finally managed to have a chat with Tom Willmot. I talked about what I’ve done so far, how I wanted to learn more advanced things, and how I hoped that being part of a bigger company would give me that opportunity. A couple of weeks later I got an email from Tom saying that Human Made would like to offer me a paid, full-time, three month internship. Hurray! It also happened to be my birthday when I got the news. Coincidence? Nah, magic! 🙂

I started my three months by joining Jenny Wong and Matt Haines-Young working on a big project for Newton, a financial company (the website is close to the official launch). I found it incredibly rewarding to work as part of the Human Made team. Everyone was friendly and always happy to help and explain things. We used HipChat, Skype, and Github for communication. I was extremely pleased about the “code peer review” policy; I found it to be one of the main ways of learning code – from small tricks to new big concepts.

There is a fortnightly Google Hangout with everyone showing recent work and sharing any new things they’ve learned. Such a great way to discover new ideas and keep up to date, as well as catching up with everyone and sharing some laughs. It did feel more like a happy, geeky family catchup rather than a boring company meeting; you know, those that usually send you to sleep.

Everyone was friendly and helpful. The company is very transparent with their business, with what’s happening and how well it’s doing. This makes the team so much stronger. Everyone’s opinion is welcome, everyone feels included and valued; I certainly did. Such a great company culture, where work truly becomes a playground with sharing knowledge and fun – such a breath of fresh air.

Near the end of my internship we all went to WordCamp Europe in Sofia, Bulgaria. There I met everyone in person. I had an amazing time. It was a great mix of going to the conference, brain storming, co-working and hacking on projects together, as well as doing some non-computer related activities. We played paintball, went go-karting, played Cards Against Humanity and more.

In addition to the internship salary, Human Made provided all the software and learning materials I needed to help with my learning. They kindly paid for the conference, travel and accommodation. I’ve learned tons, had fun and felt part of a great team. What else can you wish for? Well, most understandably, for a full time position with them, which Human Made offered to me at the end of the internship and which I gladly accepted. I did tell you – magic does exist and dreams do come true!

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