Foosball, Coffee and Code – My three-month internship at QFS

3 to 3. Match ball. The players stand in their positions, tense, their hands sweaty. Throw-in. Team Blue has the ball. A targeted pass forward, the forward takes it. A pass to the boards, over the top, shot! The moment in which the ball finds its way towards the goal line stretches out, feels like an eternity. At the last moment, the red goalkeeper jumps in and blocks the ball. There it is already back in midfield. The ball is precisely parried by both teams again and again – until Blue makes a mistake. The ball is now at the feet of the red striker. And there it lies, safe, dangerous. A breath later, a treacherous press ball is on its way towards the goal. The ball winds its way around the defense, but the blue goalkeeper is standing firm, too firm. At the last second, the ball takes a small right turn due to the spin. You can hear it clack. GOOOOOAL! The red team wins this match 4 to 3.

If there was something I hadn’t expected from my three months at QFS, that would probably have been it. But to only talk about the twice-weekly table football matches in the this post would probably be a gross understatement of what I actually experienced and learned during this time. But first a bit about me:

I started to take an interest in computer science back in 2020, when I started working on bigger and bigger hobby projects with friends. I heard about QFS for the first time through friends and my computer science teacher, whose former students I eventually got to know at QFS.

In February 2024, four months before my own A-level exams, I did a one-week internship at QFS, where I was able to gain my first experience with the company and was also introduced to the project which would accompany me throughout the months between my A-levels and my university studies: Video streaming the screen content of a (virtual) Android device via Android Accessibility over the network to a Swing application.

If you didn’t quite get that last part, dear reader, don’t worry: I didn’t either. But once I understood what this all meant (with a little help, because Android can be so annoying), I was able to show off a working prototype, which ran on my computer separately from QF-Test, after my first week at QFS.

A bit of school and A-levels later, I thought to myself – in view of my upcoming computer science studies – that it might make sense to gain a bit more than one week of experience as a “professional” developer. Before I knew it I had a three-month temp job at QFS with the task to actually integrate my prototype into QF-Test and migrate it from Android Accessibility to the Android Media Projection API.

I know, I know: fancy!

In addition to the actual work as a developer, where I learned, for example, how to find my way around a large project, or that the debugger is quite a useful invention, there were some internal trainings in which, for example, cybersecurity or proper testing was discussed. I was also part of dev meetings that gave me a deeper insight into problems that went completely unnoticed from the outside. There I was able to learn how to approach such tasks in a structured way.

There was a clear schedule on Monday and Thursday, which gave the day a rhythm and allowed me to talk to my colleagues about topics other than the previous Jira ticket. 9:30 a.m., for example, was the coffee break (other drinks were also available, of course). 15 minutes later (sometimes after a small workout), the stand-up meeting started, during which upcoming tasks and the past weekend were discussed and sometimes a colleague’s birthday was serenaded. Then came the lunch break. On Mondays, we ate together in the meeting room. On Thursdays, we went over to the Greek or Italian restaurant or - if both were closed - to Lieferando. And between 2 and 3 pm, the long-awaited foosball game took place - a welcome distraction from that line of code that won’t run.

This created a very pleasant working atmosphere, where you don’t have to be afraid of a dull office, but can ride your bike full of anticipation from Geretsried to Gelting. I never felt alone with my project and this was one of the reasons why I was able to present another finished prototype at the end of August, which I was definitely proud of.

So in conclusion, I want to again thank everyone at QFS: thank you very much for this great experience and the nice gifts for both my birthday and my farewell to Passau. The way you do it, IT is really fun. My time with QFS has given me an insight into a functioning, pleasant and productive working life. And who knows, maybe I’ll be back in the future…

P.S.: But only if I survive math at university, I think that will be a challenge of its own.