๐ Term 1: May 5 โ Aug 29, 2025
๐ Highlights
- Contributed to the modernization of the Wildfire Risk Rating API, migrating the data layer to an in-memory store and ensuring outputs remained consistent with the legacy system.
- Improved development and deployment workflows by updating local and containerized environments, strengthening CI/CD pipelines, and enhancing credential security.
- Explored and delivered a proof of concept for HTML-to-PDF generation through containerization, handling images, links, and formatting challenges.
- Built and refined automated testing to compare system outputs across environments, reducing debugging time and increasing confidence in data consistency.
- Shared progress through demos, documentation, and walkthroughs, helping the team adopt new workflows and troubleshoot efficiently.
๐ง Reflections
-
This first term was a deep dive into backend infrastructure and DevOps practices. I learned how to think differently about data when shifting from relational structures to key-value storage, how to design automation that makes debugging easier, and why security and reliability in build pipelines are critical for long-term sustainability.
-
Beyond the technical side, Iโm truly grateful for my manager and teammates. They were always patient and encouraging. Whether it was giving feedback and applause after my demos, or making me feel included during weekly team lunches even when my English was limited and I sometimes said the wrong words. These moments made me feel supported and gave me the confidence to grow not only as a co-op student, but also as someone who belongs to a family-like team.
๐ฏ Looking Ahead In the next term, I aim to:
- Expand testing to cover more scenarios and integrate results into the CI pipeline.
- Take on upcoming team priorities, including production-level improvements and new feature requests for the Wildfire and Dam Safety.