Aigul Imadildayeva

1. What did you do during the internship?

POWr develops applications for web sites that help small businesses to grow and develop. The company became a leader in the plugin development and have helped nearly 8 million small businesses worldwide. All POWr plugins are built with simple consistent visual interface. Any user, with any level of technical skills can edit and update their plugins in real time without a single line of code. Our partners include platforms such as, eCommerce, WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Jimdo, Shopify, Bigcommerce, etc. The company has produced around 50 apps, and during the internship my task was to expand the functionality of these applications.

2. What results have you achieved?

My favorite app in the POWr’s portfolio is SocialFeed. Expanding the app’s functionality, I learned to work with Google, Facebook, Twitter APIs etc. professionally and their ins and outs. Thus I learned to work with the cycles of the asynchronous calls using such method of organizing asynchronous code, as Promises. Our startup develops new products all the time. This year we have launched the Business Booster that helps site owners to assess the growth of their business using Search Engine Optimization, social networking, evaluation of the design and functionality of the website, email marketing and more. I am pleased that I was one of the developers of the project. Our tasks were very exciting and challenging, but one could say we managed pretty well. After the project had been launched, I was offered to stay and continue working in the Valley. And you know, I chose to stay.

3. What’s next?

My plan is to become a strong engineer to complete as many interesting and useful projects as possible. And for this I want to keep expanding my knowledge in programming and skills to participate in the development of new ideas for our startup. Every day here is a great opportunity to participate in workshops and trainings that the most advanced technology companies in Silicon Valley carry out. There is much to learn about developing new technologies and you are able to make acquaintance with the best programmers in the world here. I have met a lot of Kazakhs who work at Google, Facebook, Yelp. Almost all of them are champions in programming. My plan is to stay in the Valley for the next year, and then to return to Kazakhstan.