Vinted Engineering

Last Friday marked the end of my journey as an iOS developer intern at Vinted.

It all started with my future mentor Mindaugas teaching an introductory iOS course at Vilnius University. Developing iOS apps has been a dream of mine, which is why I signed up for the additional course. My interest in Vinted was sparked by Mindaugas, who taught his class using real examples from the app they were building. One day, mid-semester, I approached Mindaugas with a question, ‘Maybe you are looking for a guy who wants to become an iOS dev?’

I knew that it won’t be an easy path to take. The first step was to accomplish a homework task with no deadline. Sounds like a trap, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t, but I still managed to spend few extra days polishing my solution. When I finally sent it, I instantly turned into an impatient child bombarding Mindaugas with questions: ‘Have you looked at it? Is it any good? When will you know?’ Being the great guy he is, he coped with me and delivered the answer - an invitation for a tryout.

A tryout lasts two days at Vinted - I was given a task that needed to be accomplished during the current sprint. That felt inspiring, I was greeted with an existing problem! I had to implement a screen for selecting a payment method.

I would lie if I said that I wasn’t overwhelmed. The code base is huge, the tools were new, and I didn’t even have any Objective-C experience. Luckily, I had Vinted people with great knowledge surrounding me, who aided me countless times when I was lost. I dreaded Objective-C and I was glad when I saw that Vinted has been steadily adopting Swift. I added to the adoption by implementing my assignment in the language. The second day ended with an hour-long assessment of my code and some white board coding, after which I wasn’t really sure if I am to become an intern.

But I guess somebody liked me. Not long after the tryout, Mindaugas wrote that they would be happy to accept me for a three month long internship. The first day as a full-fledged employee was astonishing. I got to know my teammates from Vinted’s Magic team, see what they’ve been up to, find out more about my role, the workflow and, most importantly, what new things we are going to accomplish in the near future.

The guys from Magic believe that what they’re doing matters to the company. Their belief helped me fit in and contribute the best way I could. The first weeks went on with close oversight from Mindaugas, but it wasn’t long until I was granted ever more autonomy. At one of the feedback sessions, Mindaugas said that I was on my way to becoming a standalone developer. That was the best thing an aspiring intern could hear.

I also became a member of Vinted’s iOS guild. A guild consists of people from one field, and it does a great job of helping us developers sync. There are weekly meet ups, where we discuss the things we’ve done last week and what’s to come. Communication is crucial at Vinted. This was a real gamechanger comparing to my previous experience working as a developer, where I had no idea what others were working on and what’s the goal.

Of course, it can go both ways: there were times when we’d spend half a day in meetings, grooming the features. But in the end, it’s crystal clear that communication is what makes the development process easier and the features successful. It’s so cool that I’ve gotten to work with the top iOS developers in the region, gaining invaluable skills along the way.

Three intense months passed. On the last day of my internship, I was offered a permanent position of an iOS developer. You can imagine the joy and sense of accomplishment I felt. My effort paid off. My dream came true.

Internships at Vinted are a thing you don’t want to miss - in my experience, they lead to great things. If you have an opportunity to be here, take it!