Hey what’s up ?#
Hey, I’m currently in my last year of engineering school in France and I’m working part-time as a cloud engineer at a german company since September. For the past 4 months (at the time of writing), I’ve been working 10 hours a week while studying full-time and I’m here to share my experience with you.
The company I’m working for is Dalim Software, a software company that provides solutions for the media industry. I’m part of the IT team and I’m working on the infrastructure as code (IaC) of the company’s products.
How did I land this job ?#
My engineering school mandates a 3-month internship abroad in the 4th year of the curriculum. I did mine at Dalim Software during Summer 2024.
I live in Strasbourg, and the company is based in Kehl, Germany, just across the Rhine River. I was fortunate to find a place abroad to work during my internship, and I commuted to work by tram every day.
I was originally hired in the IT team to work on the kubernetes infrastructure of the new product the company was developing and since I did a good job during my internship, the company offered me a part-time full-remote job for the rest of my studies.
I accepted the offer because tha valuable experience I was getting was worth the time I was spending on it.
How do I manage my time ?#
The (not so) cool thing with being a student is that each week is different: some weeks are busy with exams, some are not. Some weeks you work only for 3 days, some weeks you work all 5. Not having a fixed schedule is truly a blessing ಥ_ಥ
So as you could guess, I have to constantly adapt my time a bit ahead of time. I have to look weeks in advance and try to be flexible and adapt to the unexpected because sometimes professors charge you with a last-minute assignment. And that’s fine, I just have to be there just like the other students.
Lucky for me, Dalim (more particularly my manager) is very understanding and compliant with my student status. I can work from home when I have to study for exams or when I have to attend a class. I can also work more hours during the holidays to compensate for the weeks I couldn’t work.
How do I keep up the motivation ?#
At the beginning of my contract, I built an excel sheet to track the hours I worked each week and the hours I have left to work. I also use it to log the tasks I’ve done and the tasks I have to do. This way, I can keep track of my progress and see how much I’ve accomplished.
But some weeks are harder than others. Some weeks I’m tired, some weeks I’m not motivated, some weeks I have a lot of exams. And I have to admit that sometimes I just want to chill and do nothing like all the other students ahah but I guess my todo list isn’t going to do itself.
Actually, I’m quite proud of my excel sheet because I made it very colorful and I added some conditional formatting to make it look cool. I also added some graphs to visualize my progress and I’m quite happy with the result. Each day I add a comment on the cell of the day with the tasks I’ve done. This way, my manager can see what I’ve done since I work remotely.
What did I learn ?#
Throughout this part-time experience, I have gained extensive knowledge in cloud technologies and infrastructure as code (IaC) tools, honed my time management and organizational skills, mastered remote work and effective team communication, and developed a strong sense of independence and initiative-taking.
Infrastructure as code (IaC)#
- I’m confortable using Terragrunt
- I crafted a lot of Terraform modules
- I’m much more familiar with AWS services than before
Working remotely#
- I’m using Confluence to publish my documentations for the rest of the team
- I used Teams a lot to communicate with IT team members
Communication#
- I’m aware that other people are not up to date with what I’m doing so I’m making sure to communicate with them
- I’m also aware that I can ask for help when I need it
- By being autonomous I learnt how to be naturally proactive and take initiatives when needed
Conclusion#
I’m very grateful for this opportunity and I’m glad I accepted it. Even though it’s not always easy to have to juggle between work / studies / friends / sports, I think it was worth it. Now I can brag about my experience and my skills in interviews and on my resume. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
Dalim Software is a great company to work for and I’m glad to have the chance to work with such kind people. I’m ultra grateful for the trust they give me and the opportunity they offered me.
Thank you Melwin, Vincent, Céline and the rest of the team for your continuous support and your kindness.
And now ?#
Thanks to this experience, I’ve been able to land a internship at AXA in Paris, located in La Défense debuting in March 2025 ! I’ll be working full-time for 6 months in the Cloud Program as a Cloud Engineer Intern.
I’m very excited to start this new adventure and I’m looking forward to learning new things and meeting new people.
