Author: ethann548

Today was my final day at Sift Media. As today was a Thursday, Bill Edwards, a representative from Sift Media China, joined us for my final standup via audio. After my last report of the Work Experience program, I got to work on finishing up my project. As I was already done with the behind the scenes algorithmic aspects as well as the front-end interface, my primary goal for today was get the program to save the users inputs in a JSON format. This proved more difficult than anticipated as many browsers either didn’t support downloading JSON (Microsoft Edge) or didn’t support the type of dropdown I was using. (Google Chrome and Opera) With much trial and error, however, I was eventually able to find a browser that supported both features I desired which turned out to be Mozilla Firefox. To celebrate the last day of my internship, we went out for ice cream at The Parlor, after eating lunch at the Q Shack.

Today was my 2^nd to last day at Sift. At stand up, I presented on my progress on my project and my goals for the day. At stand up, I became aware that our third candidate was being interviewed around 1 pm. Because of the later interview, the applicant did not join us for lunch which was at Neomonde. For the final step of my project, I needed to be able to upload a JSON file to a html website to store it. Today I researched potential ways to accomplish it. If all goes according to plan, I will have my project completed by tomorrow.

Today was my 6^th Day at Sift Media. A time after getting to work, I reported my progress to the group. During stand-up, Jud Bowman, Sift’s CEO, made me aware that Ms. Jones, a teacher at Cary Academy, would be visiting my workplace today. Shortly, after stand-up, I let Ms. Jones into the building gave her of the American Underground showcasing its features such as its slide and sleeping quarters. After giving a short tour, Ms. Jones left to visit other students and I got back to work. Today I got my program to display the user inputted data in a JSON-like text format, although not a JSON file specifically. Tomorrow I work on having it convert to a JSON file. For lunch, I had a barbeque at the Original Q Shack. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the opening of Sift Media’s office in China, we also had ice cream at The Parlor.

Today was the first day of my second week at Sift Media after a nice and refreshing weekend. As always, I once again reported my progress on my project and got to work after. At stand-up, I became aware of a third candidate who Sift had just found out about a third potential candidate for their position of Technical account manager. I am not sure whether I will get to meet this person as before an in-person interview can occur employees at Sift will have to do some over the phone interviews to see whether this applicant is worth their consideration. Project-wise I got my drop-down bar to display data from a JSON file and show an onscreen text message appropriate to their selection. Tomorrow I will work on making it so that this selection can be sent to another JSON file. For lunch, I ventured to Happy China with two other Sift Coworkers and enjoyed sesame chicken with rice.

Today marked the last day of my first week at Sift Media. After a typical daily stand-up, I got back to work on my project. Today I added a text box and a drop down select to take user input. Over the course of the day, I got both items to work with hardcoding, but I had difficulty making the drop down select working with data received from a JSON file. I will work on resolving this issue tomorrow. In addition to continued work on various software, some members of the Sift Media team interviewed their second candidate for the position of technical account manager. Similarly, to last time, I was uninvolved with the interview process, but got to meet the applicant at lunch which occurred at Neomonde. After lunch, we had a few more hours of work. Towards the end of the workday, some of Sift’s employees unwound from a long week of work by playing a friendly game of “Settlers of Catan.”

Today I continued work on my project and observed some of the company’s operations. I started the day off with some work on my side project. I modified my code so it would display its data in an easier to read table format. At the company’s “Stand-Up”, I reported on my progress on the project. This standup was slightly different than usual because Bill Edwards, a technical account manager, from Sift’s branch in Shanghai, China reported on how that branch of the company was doing via audio. After stand-up, a few of Sift’s employees interviewed a candidate that Sift was considering hiring for one of their open positions in Durham. While I was busy working on my project and did not get to witness the interview process, I did get to meet the applicant when I went to lunch with the company to Copa, a local Cuban restaurant. After lunch, I went back to Sift’s headquarters to work adding a dropdown box to accept user input for my project.

Today marked my second day at Sift Media and first full day working on my project. The long-term goal of this project is to create a web interface that can preview company partners and intake feedback regarding these partners from the user and put it into a file. After reporting on my progress, the previous day at the company’s stand-up I got to work on my program. My work had a short break around noon where I enjoyed pita pockets from Neomonde for lunch on the American Underground building’s roof. With much thought, debugging and googling, I got an interface working to display data from JSON file and to tomorrow I hope to implement user inputs in the coming days.

Today marked my first day of interning at Sift Media, a computer science startup which designs algorithms to tailor ads to smartphone users. I arrived at the American Underground, a workspace that Sift Media shares with other startups, and was greeted by Jud Bowman, Sift’s Founder and CEO. After giving me, an office key and a parking pass, Jud led me into the office. At the beginning of the day, I mostly just followed company members to get a grasp of how the company functioned. I listened in on phone calls with clients and observed the company’s “Stand-Up” or beginning of work meeting. For lunch, I joined some of company’s and went to Banh’s Cuisine a local Vietnamese restaurant in Durham. After lunch, Slawek Pruchnik, Sift’s Chief Technology Officer, gave me a programming project to work on. I worked on this project for the rest of the day.