Finding Balance While Growing Into the Role

It has been about two and a half months since I started my internship, and around three and a half months since I joined the company, and by looking back, I feel genuinely happy with the level I’ve reached so far, realizing I’ve learned a lot, built meaningful connections, and started to feel more comfortable in the day-to-day work, however, at the same time, this stage has made me realize how challenging it is to balance everything.

Between work, university responsibilities, and personal life, and adding the constant pressure of keeping up with AI, it can feel overwhelming. There’s always something new to learn, something to improve, something to catch up with. I haven’t fully figured out how to balance it all yet, but I can definitely feel the weight of it, and I know I need to be more intentional with how I manage my time.

These weeks started by closing Sprint 4, and it went really well. We completed all the planned objectives, and during the sprint review I could see clear improvements in my velocity and how I manage my tasks, showing me I always can do better.

It’s not just about finishing work anymore, it’s about doing it better, more efficiently, and with more confidence, and now we’re working on Sprint 5, continuing to meet goals while also taking on new responsibilities, like setting up a contingency testing environment due to limitations with the client’s access. Being involved in these kinds of decisions makes me feel much more connected to the project.

One of the most satisfying parts has been seeing how much the project has changed. What started as a simple tool where users uploaded a CSV and received some dashboards and reports has evolved into a full multi-tenant application that supports multiple organizations, role-based access, user management, risk tracking, and customized evaluations that generate maturity scores and visual progress over time. It honestly feels like a completely different product.

Even though we still don’t have access to a shared testing environment, we found ways to move forward — like creating demo videos of the features and sharing them with the client. It’s not perfect, but it keeps things moving.

In the meantime, AI continues to shape how I work every day, We’ve been learning a lot about its applications, and at the same time, dealing with real limitations, especially tokens, that are expensive, and you can’t just use these tools without thinking.

You have to be intentional with the AI usage.

To adapt, I started using both Claude Code and GPT Codex, the most cheaper subscription for now, splitting tasks between them depending on what I need. Over time, I’ve learned when each one works best, and even built a kind of personal “agent workflow” that helps me stay productive without wasting resources, by not just using AI, but learning how to manage it.

Another area where I’ve grown a lot is in testing and quality, were with help from the QA team, I explored their practices and tools, and ended up creating my own workflow based on that. I was able to implement automated end-to-end tests using Playwright, which gave me much more confidence in the features I build. Now it feels like I have better control over the entire development process, not just building things, but making sure they actually work as expected.

Something that continues to stand out is how much you can learn just by talking to people, whether it’s sharing AI tools, discussing ideas, or even standing in front of a whiteboard trying to figure out a complex database structure, are moments that make a big difference.

I have noticed that conversations turn into ideas, and ideas turn into better solutions.

There’s also a strong push across the company to use AI in a meaningful way, which creates both excitement and a bit of pressure. It’s clear that being a developer now is not just about writing code, it’s about finding ways to create real value.

Outside of the technical side, there are still those moments that keep everything balanced.

We had another soccer game, which is slowly becoming a monthly tradition. It’s always fun, full of laughs, and a great way to connect with everyone. Personally, I’ve noticed I’ve improved a lot, I can finally keep up for the whole game. Those small things matter more than I expected.

Final Thoughts

These weeks have been intense, but in a good way.

I’m improving, I’m contributing more, and I’m starting to feel like I truly belong to this profession. At the same time, I’m learning that growth comes with pressure, and learning how to handle that is part of the process.

There’s still a lot ahead, but I’m excited for it. I want to keep learning, keep improving, and make this project something I can be proud of, not just because of what we build, but because of how I grow along the way.