What our Co-op student says about working at ThoughtFarmer

Our Co-op students play an enormous role in our success at ThoughtFarmer—so much so that we are always a little sad when it’s time for one of our students to move on.

One of these Co-op superstars is Raman Sehmbi. Raman came to us eight months ago from Simon Fraser University, as a third year computer science student. His inquisitive yet gregarious nature allowed him to easily fit in at ThoughtFarmer.  

Here is what Raman had to say about working for ThoughtFarmer: 

How did you first learn to learn about ThoughtFarmer?

After studying for two years at Simon Fraser University, I wanted to gain work experience. I wanted to apply my academic education to real-world problems and explore the practical applications of computer science. This led me to enroll in the SFU Co-op program, where I first learned about ThoughtFarmer through the SFU Co-op job board.

What was your role at ThoughtFarmer?

I joined ThoughtFarmer as a Quality Assurance Co-op student. This included ensuring the ThoughtFarmer Intranet met company standards before production release to customers. I was involved in testing for bugs, and ensuring nothing affected the functionality of the product. I also found new issues and tested new features before they were released.

By working closely with the UX, Developer, Customer Support, and Professional Services teams, I learned how production software is developed, delivered, and maintained. 

What did you enjoy most about your time at ThoughtFarmer?

I really enjoyed working in a team environment at ThoughtFarmer. At meetings, my manager listened to my feedback and the team worked together to resolve the issues I had identified. The communication from different team members helped me understand their perspective related to functionality or design of the software. In addition, flexible working hours and working remotely helped me maintain an amazing work-life balance.

What did you learn during your time here?

As a Co-op student working with the Quality Assurance team, I gained valuable experience in various areas of Computer Science. I started by learning the key features of the ThoughtFarmer product, as well as how agile software development works in practice. I learned how the team of developers interact, solve bugs, and deliver new features. Through interacting with developers and attending meetings, I improved my communication skills. These meetings gave me a toolkit to approach hard problems in creative ways. 

My team lead, Jen, assisted me and always encouraged me to do my best work. Initially, I focussed on learning the product through exploratory testing, and as I learned more about QA I focussed on automated testing. I wrote regression tests for a key event registration feature in C#, using NUnit and Selenium. I enjoyed writing automated tests as the work was challenging but rewarding. I had to improve my work efficiency and time management skills to accomplish my assigned tasks. During the process I got familiar with a broad range of technologies, including the .NET Core framework, C#, unit testing, and automated browser testing with Selenium and Cypress. I learned a lot both by doing the work, and through internal training sessions on automated testing and the importance of Web Accessibility. 

After being a part of the ThoughtFarmer Developer team, I realized that software development is more than just programming. Successful software development requires contributions from a talented team of members with diverse skill sets.

How would you describe the culture here?

Every month we have a company event for extracurricular activities. Attending these fun activities gave me the chance to interact with my coworkers outside work and share a friendly bond with them. We went on hikes, cooking classes, fitness classes, and sometimes spent the evening playing Nintendo switch or video games with my managers and colleagues.

The friendly and creative work-environment enabled me to share my ideas and know that they would be received well, even though I was a co-op student. This culture brought the best out of me and it was really an honor to work with the ThoughtFarmer team. 

ThoughtFarmer hires Co-op students throughout the year, for a variety of jobs from software development to quality assurance. Given the integral role co-op students played in our early days, it’s no surprise that co-op students remain a big part of ThoughtFarmer.

If you are interested in applying for a Co-op position at ThoughtFarmer, please visit our careers page.