Rocketing to success: networking before and after landing a co-op | Co-operative Education

Taylor DeVries (she/her) is a second-year Software Engineering student. She speaks about how she landed her first-choice co-op and the great work culture she experienced at Rocket Innovation Studio.

Taylor’s co-op journey:

Work term one: Taylor’s first work term was with as a software developer co-op. She worked as a full stack developer on web applications and was part of an agile development team, taking part in daily standups, sprint plannings, team retrospectives, and completion of user stories.

Q&A with Taylor:

How did you land a co-op at Rocket Innovation Studio?

Taylor smiling with a butterfly sitting on her finger.

“I’ve wanted a job at Rocket Innovation Studio since high school.”

“I knew about the company because they're the biggest tech company in Windsor, which is where I grew up.”

“Back in November before I started applying in January, I reached out to the co-op hiring manager through LinkedIn.”

“I said “Hey, I'm local to Windsor. I go to the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ. I'm really interested. Just let me know if there's any openings.” They responded and replied, “Thanks for your enthusiasm but we aren’t hiring until January.” So, I waited until January and found the position on ��ݮ��ƵWorks.”

“I got a phone call from a recruiter a week after I applied, completed two interviews, submitted my rankings and got the job.”

“I did detailed applications and applied to around 20 jobs while a lot of my friends were applying to hundreds. I interviewed with one company and then I got the job. So, I consider myself very lucky as it seems I had a very different experience to most people.”

What’s the best part about working for Rocket Innovation Studio?

“The company culture was great at Rocket Innovation Studio. It's super collaborative, the team was always hanging out together and everyone helps each other out.”

“We got to go to Detroit often, which was fun. There was an all-company intern meeting there where we got to meet the American interns from other businesses that are part of Rocket Companies.”

“I attended a few networking events which involved senior leadership. There was a company ISMs day to cover the company culture and values.”

“Everyone was also super comfortable talking to you. For example, I went to a discussion panel about AI and cyber security in Detroit where senior leaders were talking about the future of AI. I introduced myself to some of the leaders there and connected with them on LinkedIn.”

“They were super friendly and showed lots of enthusiasm to talk to me about opportunities for the future. One director even reached out to me after the panel to follow up with a one-on-one meeting.”

Taylor standing in front of a waterfall.

“The company really wants the best for their co-ops. Everyone is happy to answer your questions or even let you shadow their job. This meant that I wasn’t tied down to any one position. If I didn’t enjoy what I was doing, I could explore other job opportunities.”

What kind of projects did you work on?

“A lot of web development, which included both front-end and back-end work.”

“I learned Angular, which is a framework for the front-end side of web development. Then on the back-end I was doing a lot of node.js and Express.js. I got to work on some UI/UX projects which involved me working with the design team and I also got some work involving endpoints and databases.”

If you could describe the company in one word, what would that word be?

A large body of water and city at night.

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“I have friends who are also in co-op and from what they tell me, the company cultures are vastly different from Rocket Innovation Studio. Many of them don't feel free to express themselves and the environments aren't as conducive to collaboration.”

“A lot of my family is in the automotive industry and I've found that’s a completely different dynamic.”

“Even the language that they used is different, they didn’t refer to us as employees but as team members. Managers weren’t bosses but team leaders. As I said earlier, they also didn’t want you to feel intimidated by anyone. You could feel free to go up to directors or vice presidents and start chatting with them.”

“They’re changing how companies treat their employees and I think that’s amazing.”

How did you stay focused when you’re working from home?

“I put my phone in a separate room or inside my desk, so I didn’t touch it, because that was the biggest distraction for me.”

“When you're at home, there's no one watching you, so it’s easier to give in to the temptation to spend more time on your phone.”

“I do listen to music while I do work. That helps me stay focused as I do a lot of coding.”

A coffee with Rocket Tech written on it.

How would you rate your work life balance on a scale of one to ten?

Taylor and 4 others wearing jerseys and in front of a Tiger's sign.

“Ten out of ten, they were so understanding.”

“If you have a headache or can't deal with something, they encouraged us to take a break or take a ten-minute walk.”

“I never worked after 5 p.m. No one emailed or messaged me after work hours. I've had such a good experience with my work life balance.”

What's next for you?

“I hope to do more work terms here, maybe branching out and exploring more fields such as cybersecurity and data science.”

“I also want to try to get into finance and the business side of technology more.”

“I found working for a fintech company to perfectly suit my interests, so alongside my technical courses I plan on taking some business courses too.”