Vaishnavi Arumugam (EPITA Class of 2022): Passion for software development

A current student of MSc Computer Science in Software Engineering, Vaishnavi ARUMUGAM has been passionate for computer science for years. What she learnt at EPITA helped her land the first job in France. Discover her journey here!

What is your background before you studied at EPITA?

I obtained a Bachelor of Computer Science in Karpagam college of Engineering. Then I worked as a Program analyst in a company named Cognizant Technology Solutions, which was an American Multinational company. I worked there for about a year including the training. Later I joined EPITA for the program MSc Computer Science – Software Engineering.

Why do you choose EPITA?

I prefer EPITA because it was unique to the computer science field. Most of my schooling is about computer science. I wish to join a school specializing in computer science. EPITA is one of the top ones. That is why I choose EPITA.

How was your student experience at EPITA? 

The overall experience is very good. This was the first time I travelled outside India. I was afraid during the first weeks because of the cultural difference with other students who come from different countries. It turned out that it was not I expected at all. We have become very good friends regardless of nationalities. We shared knowledge. We shared culture. We exchanged everything.

Although we do not have a lot of social events because of COVID, we have acquired lots of knowledge from EPITA, which is very useful. EPITA has a good name outside, even in our company. The employers expect a lot from EPITA students. Sometimes, this could create stress for me.

I have good experience about learning French in EPITA. I finished A1 and A2 French language courses before I came to France. Then I had attended classes at B1 Level for a year at EPITA. The classes were very useful. They helped me to communicate with my colleagues and do groceries.

How did you get to your current internship?

There are a lot of positions for developers in the market nowadays, but there are not many Software Developers in Ericsson. I applied for their internship through the website Indeed and was hired after having passed the interview. I was offered a permanent job (CDI in French) near the end of my internship. Only two out of five interns are hired. I officially started working there after my oral defense.

How’s working in Ericsson like?

Ericsson is a very big sector. A lot of people are working with me. I joined a sector under Ericsson called R&D serviceability which have several teams.

They hired five interns to work on some projects. We the interns formed a new team with an experienced supervisor. At the beginning, all of us worked in a project about 5G network configuration application, which supports customers in automated service provisioning.

Later, three interns, including me, were involved in another project for a URe5 robots functioning related to test the Ultra Latency Features of 5G Network. To achieve this goal, we had to develop Java applications. I was not very good at AI parts, but I tried my best to understand. We developed from scratch, and we succeeded. We were appreciated and rewarded during the internship.

Then we got back to the previous project, and we are now still working on it.

How did what you learnt at EPITA help you during your internship?

The students of the specialization Software Engineering had more technical classes that those of other specializations. Our professor, Mr. Thomas Broussard, taught me Advance Java with a lot of programming parts like Java Script. This was very useful.

Apart from technical classes, I also had cultural modules, which are very helpful when I approached a large team with different cultures at work. There are some situations when I did not know how to interpret people’s reactions. Those classes had helped me a lot.

Can you tell us a bit more about your project?

I am part of a team of 8 members, which works on the project for the 5G network application. The web application called ECT – Equipment Configuration Tool, which prepares configuration files, for the 5G network. With the application, users can have several options, which produces a configuration file in an XML format. There is no separate database storage for this project, The generation of XML file with network data is done through it and that will be useful to help configure the network.

What are the career prospects with your job?

I would like to become a senior developer, later a scrum master or a team leader in a reputed company like Google. I’d like to manage a team and the tasks of my colleagues, so that they can work in an organized manner, without any overlapping of duties.

What do you love the most about your job?

It’s all about bringing quality to the application and the code. I love to discover new things for developping the applications. As developers, we have to find the perfect shortcut. I like developing the software or applications that will be helpful for people.

What advice would you give to the prospective students?

Don’t hesitate to join EPITA. They will help you to excel in the computer science field. It’s not just technically, but also about how to manage people and organize things. For now, I am a Java developer and might not need management skills yet. However, when I become a team leader, the management skills that I learnt at EPITA will be very helpful.