The ideal workplace!

I am Ward Vandevoort, 22 years old and I started at Codana as a junior backend developer at the beginning of November 2021. After my last semester of Interactive Multimedia Design at the Thomas More University College, I was contacted by NewBrix, a recruitment company within the Cronos group. During a telephone conversation I was asked what kind of job I wanted and what kind of company I wanted to work for. Eventually they put me in touch with Codana, where I could start a few weeks later. And as they say, the rest is history.

On November 2, I was warmly welcomed in Leuven by Sigert (one of Codana's two coordinators). I got to know all the team that first day, unfortunately this went remote as our friend COVID was still doing a good job at the time. The following days I went through the onboarding and configured my laptop so I could start the real work!

During my induction period, I started working on my first project. This was immediately a large and complex website. So I was thrown in at the deep end, but of course I could always turn to my colleagues with questions. After a few weeks, I got involved in stand-ups and was allowed to start working on full-fledged tickets.

I gained a lot of knowledge about development those first few months, which allowed me to start on other projects. This made for a pleasant change and, as a rookie, it was also nice to be put on projects by big customers that you know from everyday life. In addition, it also gave me the chance to use other parts of my skillset. As a backend developer I am used to working in PHP, but in the meantime I have also worked on projects where I had to use JavaScript, jQuery and Sass. This has made me more flexible as a developer.

I have been working for Codana for more than half a year now and I cannot imagine a better first employer. You become part of a team full of strong people who make you feel at home. Everyone's voice counts, so you shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind. Because knowledge sharing is central, you will quickly notice that you are growing as a developer. In other words, it is an ideal company for a first work experience.