„Being accepted at Duotones would be like winning the jackpot for me“. This is what I was thinking when I submitted my internship application via email, and I had some good reasons to do so. At that point I was just some months through my first year of Master’s in „Languages and e-Commerce“ at the University of Franche-Comté in France, and some of the courses induced in me a genuine excitement about front-end development. Having received some introductory education on the topic, I dug into it more deeply through online courses, but I was well aware that obtaining an internship in a digital agency – part of what Duotones is – could represent a big jump towards my goal. You can only imagine my joyful reaction after they informed me that my interview had been positive and the position was mine. „Duotones, here I come!“.
As a fresh hiker in the mountains of front-end development, I was not familiar even with the basic routines. Indeed, in the first weeks I literally felt covered by an avalanche of inputs: information management tools, data sharing mechanisms, time and tasks tracking systems, not to mention the knowledge specific to front-end development. Luckily, at that point I was surrounded by some expert hikers – my new colleagues – who were always ready to pull me out of the snow when needed. Consistently equipped with patience and enthusiasm, they walked me step by step through the tough corners of this new path. After the guidance in the first uphill, I gained enough confidence so that the rest of the journey became an enjoyable descent.
During this trip my steps became smoother in a twofold sense. On the one hand, the combination between the increasing independence that I was developing and the regular followups with my tutor Marcel, blossomed in a series of daily satisfactions arising from completing the given tasks. Moreover, the design-oriented approach of Duotones gave fruits that were unforeseeable at the beginning of the internship. In particular, being regularly challenged by Marcel and Florian, I considerably improved my digital product designing skills. On the other hand, I progressively started feeling at ease within the social environment of the office: regular lunches, frequent chats and jokes built a solid routine among us. Needless to say, being surrounded by the positivity spread by Marcel, Florian, Joel, Anna-Lena and Thomas enhanced the willingness to spend time at work and at the same time facilitated both personal and professional exchanges of views. Eventually, these group dynamics even led to social events outside the working hours: barbecues, surprise birthday parties, sightseeing tour in Bern, swimming in the river – you name it!
A big plus of working in Duotones is the variety of the projects one works on. In fact, the customers include charity organizations, small companies and bigger ones, and the services range from product and interactive design to website and installation development. On top of that, in these six months I got my hands on the different stages that build up a product: from brainstorming through design to development, together with other intermediate steps.
All in all, in these months I breathed fresh and empowering air, I felt being part of a solid team in which all members are equally important and I had the satisfactory impression that my work created a real impact for the company. While stepping out of Duotones on the last day of my internship, I spotted a smile on my face at the thought of how much progress I made and how enthusiastic I am about continuing, together with a small tear for saying goodbye to this wonderful group of people.
