A Confession from a Senior Intern

No jokes today—let’s talk about something serious!

Since college, I’ve held quite a few jobs: serving plates at restaurants, working as a fast-food server, running errands for the department office, tutoring… But this was the first time I truly stepped into the tech industry, walked into an office, passed an interview, and officially joined a company.

It’s been a year since I came to Sudo. You know how it is—people start looking back.

So before reading the article, let’s start with some background music!

Last summer, wearing a shirt, black-framed glasses, a backpack, and carrying an ASUS laptop, I walked into AppWorks. Full of anticipation and nerves, I ran into Andy in the elevator, and he put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Aren’t you hot?” As it turns out, first impressions can be deceiving—I’d originally thought he was a really strong engineer.

His gentle accent, and the concise way engineers speak—it’s all so typical. And then there was Denny, whom I met at sudo day that evening.

This group of people accompanied me through one of the greenest, most inexperienced periods of my life.

I was really nervous during the interview. For me, stepping into the tech industry and walking into that building was eye-opening; and at the time, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted, or what Sudo was looking for.

And so, from a corner of AppWorks—back when the office only had a little over ten people—we could still go downstairs every day to get a latte from Xiao Dan, my second-favorite latte in the world, and enjoy happy hour every Friday.

Gradually, we got our own office. Even though it was an internship, it felt like I was really building milestones together with everyone. I still remember that whole summer, sitting quietly all day watching tut+ courses while learning Rails development. Every day, I took the crowded MRT and commuted to Xinyi District, the most bustling part of Taipei.

When I got tired, I’d grab something from the snack cabinet, or walk nearby to buy a cup of coffee. Exhausting, but fulfilling.

A year has passed, and looking back at the person I was a year ago, it feels like I’ve come a long way. A GitHub profile full of green contributions, conference badges, having gone through all kinds of community events with the company, and of course all the growth, both visible and invisible.

Now the team is no longer quite the same as it was back then. There are more structured onboarding processes, CI, all kinds of SOPs, and each team, for different business needs, has begun evolving its own development workflow. I can’t help but think: if I hadn’t stepped into this place, would I still be blindly using tabs, or some outdated ES5 syntax, only finding out what webpack is after graduation?

Before I knew it, I really had come a long way!

From Rivaling for a Mermaid Line, HackNTU

MakeSchool

Offsite

Sudo Conference,

to now the summer academy, getting involved with the core product.

I don’t know how much luck I’ve embraced to have what I have today.

While enjoying life, don’t forget to pause and think about how lucky you are!

Thank you Andy, Eric, Yvette, and James for unanimously agreeing to let me join;

Thank you Ben and Denny for accepting my ugly code back then (and maybe it’s still ugly now);

Thank you Bleeki and Henry—it’s been great working with you both;

Thank you Fang Xin for picking me up from NTUST;

Thank you Selina for taking such good care of me when I first joined;

If I keep going, there are just too many people to thank.

You always say I’ve grown wings. This time,

I want to say seriously: “These wings were given to me by all of you.”

And this small, warm office has somehow also become a little crowded with people. The once spacious office has gradually become crowded.

Who knows what will happen next?

Suddenly, I’m reminded of a line from Jerry Maguire
You Complete Me