The first week of my externship at Trellix

The first week of my externship at Trellix

My name is Ridwan Adenigba. Finally, I got my externship at Trellix. If you are just joining us, Trellix is a software company located out of Cotonou, in the Benin Republic. They create scalable software and have customers all over the world. I wrote a precedent article on how I got my externship at Trellix. If I have some time, later on, I will also post an article on how I prepared for my Trellix interview and how the interview process works.

When I got my externship acceptance letter, I was shocked as I was not expecting to be selected. I immediately called my mom to announce the news to her. I was so excited, fool excited, mad excited. The following day, I went to the office. I was so excited that I missed the email asking me to fill the form to select my starting date. I was told I should check my emails and fill the form, then I would receive another confirmation email validating my starting date. I have selected my starting date to be the following week.

On my first day at Trellix, I came very early. I was so tense and nervous. This is my very first professional experience. I did some side jobs in some local shops before but never worked in an internal company before. The first thing that surprised me was that almost all communications were done by email even though we were in the same office. I later learned that there was also an internal communication system, named Slack, but externs did not have access to it. So for us, externs, email is the main channel of communication. I was appointed a supervisor on my first day, Mr. Yan Dah, who also happens to be the CEO of the company.

Before I got to work I had a meeting with my supervisor. He explained to me things not to do, and what was expected from me: professionalism, autonomy, and observation. He was also expecting me to do a lot of research on my own. After that, I joined my desk, and check my inbox, where I received my first emails from my supervisor. I was expecting to jump into coding right away. But the first emails I received were to help me understand how things are done at Trellix. I also received an email introducing me to the eCommerce industry as Trellix creates applications for eCommerce.

At noon, Wallis, a software engineer, working at Trellix came to my desk to invite me for lunch. It was a nice surprise to discover that Trellix provides breakfast and lunch to its staff. On the menu that day there was curried rice and goat meat. I sat with Wallis at the office cafeteria and we had lunch together. We chatted during lunch and I discovered that Wallis had been a software engineer at Trellix for almost 2 years now. He is mainly specialized in Frontend using technologies such as Tailwind, React, and Next.js. When he is not at Trellix Wallis likes to experiment with new technologies and research a lot about IT security. I was amazed by Wallis as he sounds exactly like the person I want to be when I grow up. 😁

I was very tense on my first day, but after having lunch with Wallis, I feel lighter and down to earth. It was one of the best moments during my first week. I have had lunch with Wallis many times after that during my externship. I also had lunch with the head of operations, Mr. Jose-Carlos, who gave a lot of professional advice. I understood that I should try my best to follow the instructions that were given to me. I should avoid impressing by taking initiatives that were out of my scope of assignments. Many people have screwed up because they wanted to impress without taking the time to observe and learn first.

Many things have happened during my first week at Trellix, but I don’t want to make the article too long. I would definitely recommend anyone I know and that is interested in technology to check out the Trellix programs, and especially the externship program.

If you have any questions about my experience at Trellix, Feel free to chat with me on Twitter.