As a recent graduate who transitioned from a co-op position at Mantle to a full-time engineer role, I’ve had the unique opportunity to experience both roles and shift from one to the other. If you’re a university student currently studying a co-op program or are exploring an engineering co-op opportunity at Mantle, my insights and experience might be helpful to you!
The co-op experience
Co-op programs are very beneficial for students to collect a breadth of experience, find a suitable career path, and build their professional network. Internship opportunities are a lot different from full-time positions as a definitive end date allows you to decide if your position is fulfilling, enjoyable, and worth pursuing for your career. Having multiple co-op terms across your degree will enhance your skillset at a variety of companies and in various roles without feeling burnt out working in a position that no longer interests you or within a company you don’t mesh well with.
Regardless of where your internships take place, each experience will undoubtedly add to your portfolio and form professional connections that could prove to be useful in the future. Personally, I explored SRE (Site Reliability Engineering), web design, and full-stack engineering roles. While I did not particularly enjoy SRE, the tools I used during that specific co-op term proved useful when I pivoted towards full-stack development and found a perfect match at Mantle. Those co-op experiences were a key factor in helping me navigate toward my career path.
Co-op terms are also a great opportunity to be supported by a team. Mantle’s work culture is incredibly supportive of personal growth and technical expertise. Feedback sessions and 1-on-1s are frequent and always encouraged so everyone receives the support they need. Having monthly hackathons also provides dedicated time to experiment with libraries and develop flashy features for our platforms.
My co-op journey at Mantle
Over my 8 months as a co-op, I contributed to multiple key projects, including:
- Leading the development of our most popular data visualizations: our unique Timeline View and ESOP (Employee Stock Option Plan) Burndown Chart.
- Delving deep into document extraction and manipulation in various document formats for our signing template and board approval features.
- Expanding the functionality of our securities by adding vesting and transactions.
- Revamping our forms across the Equity platform for consistency and functionality.
Reflecting on some of my key learning opportunities:
- Learning Golang completely from scratch was daunting but made much easier by pairing with senior engineers.
- Front-end development always interested me the most and I loved having the opportunity to experiment with various graphics, animation and charting libraries such as Visx and React Flow that power our data visualizations across the platform.
- Pairing with senior engineers greatly improved my critical thinking and the confidence I needed to succeed in our fast-paced environment.
As mentioned earlier, one of the most valuable aspects of my co-op experience was the mentorship and support I received from the Mantle team. Due to the nature of pair programming, having an engineer pairing with you is paramount for receiving the support you need to succeed. I could always bounce ideas off them or troubleshoot my blocking issues. Watching them drive the coding was also eye-opening as I picked up on shortcuts and tricks that sped up my development process.
Furthermore, the founding team here was always available for mentorship and always encouraged me to explore technology and libraries I had not worked with before to build shiny new features.
The decision to join full-time
After my two work terms at Mantle, I was thrilled to be granted the opportunity to continue after graduation. Our team culture, the challenging work, and the opportunity for personal and professional growth were all incredibly important to me in finding my new grad role.
Transitioning from my internship to a full-time engineer position was seamless. We expect our co-ops to work on the same workstreams and projects as our full-timers so the bulk of the development work was identical. There are no co-op projects or cleanup tasks, we throw everyone into the fire during the first week.
I have also taken on additional responsibilities as a full-time engineer such as providing production support on rotation and contributing to our co-op recruitment program. It’s quite wild to transition from the interviewee to the interviewer in just over one year.
In terms of which factors led me to join Mantle full-time, the team and the work were everything, honestly. Everyone is a blast to work with and there are still engineers on our Portals team I have not yet worked with. Having flexibility in what workstreams I want to work on and the blistering fast pace we push new features motivated me to return here.
Advice for future co-ops
If you’re a co-op looking to make the most of your experience, here are a few of my tips:
- Be proactive and take initiative. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek out new opportunities. Companies should always provide you with a support system for growth.
- Build strong relationships with your team. Networking is essential for career success.
- Learn as much as you can. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn new skills and technologies to apply to your studies and future experiences.
- Develop a rhythm that works for you. Juggling school and work can often be exhausting. Maintaining a work-life balance and keeping healthy is important too!
- Finding the right path and company for you. Having multiple internships can help you find the position and team that fits you well. Your career path should feel rewarding and fulfilling every day.
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