A Day In The Life Of … Bricke & Phil
From interns to permanent colleagues
From career fair naar career starters: our internship at Evolane!
At Evolane, interns are treated as full members of the team. They are fully involved in the team, receive responsibilities, and can immediately apply our studies in practice. In this article, Bricke and Phil, two students Applied Computer Science at HOGENT, share their internship experience at Evolane and how they completed their Engineer trajectory.
Curious about their story? You can read it below!
The first spark at the job fair
Our adventure started last year at the HOGENT job fair. Evolane’s booth immediately caught our attention. Not because of the usual sales pitch, but thanks to the enthusiastic conversations and the impressive technical demos the team was giving there. You could instantly feel that everyone here is genuinely passionate about technology.
But it wasn’t just the atmosphere that convinced us: the content of the internship itself immediately appealed to us as well. The combination of support, security, and building our own tools gave us the feeling that we would gain real hands-on experience here. Many internships offer more limited or clearly defined assignments, but here we immediately noticed that we would be able to contribute to real projects.
Even the first contact after our application stayed with us. It felt more like a pleasant introduction than a traditional, stressful job interview. That sense of trust immediately left a very positive impression.
“At Evolane, you are not treated as ‘the intern,’ but as a valued member of the team.”
Immediately part of the team
Our very first internship day was clear and well-structured: setting up our laptops, getting to know the team, and immediately understanding what was expected of us.
Before long, we were fully involved in the team’s daily operations. Our main responsibility focused on Level 1 Support within Akamai, where we contributed to support requests, analyses, and communication with clients.
In addition, we each had our own challenging project that allowed us to grow independently:
- Phil: “I worked on Guardian Insights, a solution that generates insights based on alerts and data within Evolane.”
- Bricke: “I focused on the further development of Guardian Tools, tooling that compares customer environments with Akamai best practices and Evolane standards, while automatically generating insights and alerts.”
From day one, we were genuinely involved in everything. You never feel like you are “just an intern” here. That open atmosphere remained present throughout the entire internship. Colleagues were always ready to answer questions, help think through solutions, or simply brainstorm together about technical challenges.
What does an internship day look like?
A typical day for us always started with a good cup of coffee and a daily sync. During this short meeting, the team discusses who is working on what. After that, we immediately got started on our tasks, often in close collaboration with our colleagues. We regularly discussed possible solutions with teammates before implementing anything or communicating with clients.
At the beginning, we mainly worked on smaller support tasks and ticketing, combined with a few school assignments. But as our knowledge grew, we were given more and more responsibility and became increasingly involved in the team’s day-to-day operations. At one point, we were essentially working as if we were already full-time colleagues!
In addition to the daily syncs, we also joined the weekly meetings. During these sessions, ongoing projects, client requests, and new ideas were discussed. That combination of technical challenges and constant collaboration ensured that no two days were ever the same.
Experiences outside the office (and time to relax)
Fortunately, our internship did not take place solely behind a screen. We had the opportunity to join real client meetings and attend some great events! For example, we visited a client and traveled to the Akamai Tech Day in Utrecht.
At the client visit, it was incredibly interesting to see firsthand how customer issues are discussed in practice and how solutions are brainstormed together. Afterwards, we even had dinner together at the Ghelamco Arena — the food was excellent, and it was great to see the stadium from the inside! The Akamai Tech Day in the Netherlands also left a strong impression: it was fascinating to discover new technologies and innovations. And honestly? We simply had a fantastic time that day as well.
And besides all the hard work, there was always room to relax too. During lunch breaks, people would regularly play pool or darts, which only strengthened the informal and friendly atmosphere within the team.
“In just 3 months of internship, we learned an incredible amount. You only truly realize how quickly you grow when you become part of a team’s daily operations.”
Learned more than in the classroom
Although our studies provided a strong foundation, we quickly realized that working in a real business environment is a completely different experience. Technologies such as Akamai are simply not something you learn about in school. You may understand the theory (for example, what a DDoS attack is) but not how to work with it in practice.
In addition, we especially learned a great deal about communication and collaboration. At school, you do develop soft skills, but participating in real meetings with clients and colleagues is something entirely different. Independently searching for solutions, communicating with clients, and collaborating within a professional team all contributed to an incredibly steep learning curve.
The IT sector turned out to be different than expected
Before starting our internship, we honestly had a somewhat different image of the IT sector. We thought everyone would be sitting quietly behind their computer wearing headphones. But at Evolane, it’s actually a very social environment! There’s a lot of laughter and constant collaboration.
We were also pleasantly surprised by the amount of client interaction. There are frequent meetings with customers, and we had not expected communication with clients to be such a large and important part of the job. That combination of technical expertise and human interaction makes the sector far more appealing to us than we had originally imagined.
And after the internship? The future awaits!
This internship only confirmed our future plans. In fact, we have both already signed a contract with Evolane!
Before starting the internship, Bricke was still considering continuing his studies, but he completely changed his mind: “In just a few months of internship, I learned more than I did during a long period at school.”
We are excited to further deepen our knowledge in cybersecurity and observability in the coming years. We want to start as broadly as possible in order to discover where our greatest interests truly lie. During the internship, you come across technologies you may never even have heard of before. For example, we saw how Dynatrace is used within observability, and that immediately made a strong impression on us.
Our advice for future interns
Do we have one golden tip for students who are still looking for an internship? Absolutely: don’t just look at a company’s location, but especially at the content of the internship itself. That truly determines how much you will learn.
And when it comes to Evolane, we can be very clear: there is no distinction between interns and employees here. From day one, you are simply part of the team.
When we look back on our internship period, one feeling stands out above all else: pure enthusiasm. We came here every day with pleasure, learned an incredible amount, and genuinely felt like part of the team. And that feeling? It’s here to stay, because after our internship, we’re simply continuing our journey here!
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