I’m losing track of actual week numbers, but here is another post!

The project is moving along and the documentation is coming together nicely. We have another dimension of this project we have to start thinking about now, releasing it! Did you know there are a whole bunch of ways to release a feature? Well there are, and we’re trying to decide which one is best for our project (and our timeline!) That’s taking up most of my desk time right now.

Outside my desk time though, I’ve been doing some pretty cool stuff! Last week there was the Engineering Forum on campus, a bunch of very informative sessions available to full time employees (FTEs) only. You needed to scan your badge and everything! There was a variety of different topics for all discipline too. Went to a total of 4 sessions including a keynote by Bob Muglia – President of Server and Tools Business (STB). One of the sessions I even won a book called the 360 degree leader – and was challenged to rethink developing and managing for the user’s experience. Also attended 2 scenario focused engineering (SFE) sessions, very interesting stuff. If you haven’t heard of Toyota’s ‘just-in-time’ production, I strongly suggest you look it up because that idea can be applied everywhere! They handed out this great little ‘cheat-sheet’ card (which fits nicely on my badge holder) to help keep the process on you. They also talked about how brainstorming is so important. If you find your team is getting stuck, you need to get more brains! Maybe that’s why we have so many meetings…

We had another intern event last week too, a Sounder’s game! I bought a jersey my first week here so I was glad to have a reason to wear it! Traffic was terrible on our way there, luckily I didn’t have to drive! We sat nice and high in the stadium, could see everything which was great. It did start raining a bit though and we weren’t undercover, but it didn’t last for too long. In case you didn’t see the game, we were down 3 goals until like the 88th minute! The Sounders managed to make it 3-2 before the end of the game so even though we lost, it was a great come back!

Also went to BobMu’s intern breakfast, nice and early on a Friday! It was a very confusing trek there, trying to shuttle around before any of the receptionists were around. There was delicious food and a chance to actually talk and ask questions with our division president. Also found out there is a STB Women’s Intern Program, and got a second mentor! Met her for the first time last week and set up our weekly meetings – it’s great to talk to someone else in another building but working through all the same things. It was another difficult trek over to her building, because the driver dropped me at a near-by building instead of the building I needed to go to. Luckily I started walking in the right direction and found it anyways. Plus I discovered her building cafeteria has great sushi!

There’s some cool stuff going on this week, I’ll keep you updated when I get a chance! Hopefully the sun will come back too :) Happy mid-June!