S22 @ Tulip Retail

September 14th, 2022

For summer 2022 I had the opportunity to joing Tulip as a Software Developer co-op student. Below is a reflection of my time there where I'll share my goals, what I did, and general thoughts on the experience working on their clienteling team.

Employer

Tulip is a fast-growing software as a service (SaaS) company focused on shaping the future of retail. Founded in 2013 Tulip has grown internationally taking on big-name retailers like Mulberry, COACH, and Kate Spade. Tulip's core applications include services for clienteling, appointments, POS, inventory, and more.

As a part of the clienteling team, I worked on the clienteling application which is used for communicating back and forth with clients, keeping track of their preferences and much more to help store associates create authentic, seamless and consistent customer experiences.

My Role

My role at Tulip was a full-stack software developer. I worked on the clienteling application, which is a mobile application that allows sales associates to connect with customers. I worked on both front-end changes for the app, as well as back-end changes for the API.

Near the beginning of the term, I worked on medium to high priority bugs in the app or API. Later on, I started working with another developer on a new Share Media feature. For this feature, we used React with TypeScript. I had used react before but TypeScript was very new to me and had a little more of a learning curve to it than JavaScript.

Most of the work I did was in either PHP, JavaScript, or TypeScript although there were a few times when I had to use Go. I was also required to add and update documentation for tickets as needed.

Goals

  1. Work on multiple issues every week

    I made this goal because I wanted to track and make sure I didn't get stuck working on a single ticket for too long. I wanted to make sure I was always working on something new and challenging. Near the beginning of the term, I wasn't meeting this goal, but soon enough I was working on 2-3 issues a week.

  2. Develop a feature with another developer

    During my work term, I wanted to work on a feature with another developer to give me a sense of how others work and think through the development process. I was able to get a lot of experience working with different developers while working on the Share Media feature which was the main project that I worked on.

  3. Demo product updates at least twice

    To improve my communication skills I wanted to present a demo at least twice over the work term. At Tulip, we do bi-weekly demos where the developers share changes that they have worked on. During these demos, I was often able to share the tasks that I was working on and as my tasks for bigger, I would even do a live demo of the application so everyone could see the progress being made.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my time at Tulip was a great experience. I met some great people I had the privilege of seeing in person for a summer event. My time there helped me to learn new skills that will stay with me for the rest of my career. Overall, I had an awesome time at Tulip and I'm excited for what comes next.

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank everyone on my team for making my time at Tulip so enjoyable. I would also like to thank my team lead, Anthony Burkholder, for being a great mentor and helping me to learn new skills. I would also like to thank Lindsay Elliott for assisting me greatly through the onboarding process.