At Teal Partners, interns don’t end up on the sidelines. They work right in the middle of real software projects. Since February, Mauro and Timothy have been strengthening our teams. Next month, they will present their results, and we are already very curious to see what they have built. This is what they say about their internship over the past months.
Mauro De Mey studies Applied Computer Science and AI at AP Hogeschool Antwerpen. He is working on Youbo, Teal Partners’ compensation software.
“I’m contributing to a proof of concept that expands the existing pay gap analysis with AI. Today, classic techniques allow you to report on a pay gap, but we are investigating how we can also support HR professionals in answering the question: what can they concretely do to reduce that gap?
To do this, we apply Double Machine Learning to anonymised payroll data. We investigate how certain parameters influence the pay gap and simulate the impact of policy choices. Our original plan was to build everything entirely in .NET, but that turned out to be less feasible. For AI applications, Python is simply better suited, partly because of the available libraries. That’s why we switched to Azure Machine Learning, where we can run that Python code smoothly.
I get very good guidance and the space to bring my own ideas to the table, for example on setting up the architecture. Technically, this has been a very valuable internship, because I had not worked much with .NET during my studies. At the same time, I’m learning what it’s really like inside a company. I already knew sprints and stand-ups in theory, but now I’m experiencing them in practice.”
Timothy Nuyts also studies Applied Computer Science at AP Hogeschool Antwerpen. He is working on Buddy, the payroll software we are building for SD Worx.
“I’m working on a dashboard that provides insights into payroll and invoicing data. I’m expanding an existing dashboard with new filters and charts, and I’m also investigating how often certain Buddy features are used.
Dozens of people have been working on Buddy for many years. It wasn’t easy for me to get started, because the software is so extensive. I had to rely on colleagues to find my way around and to obtain the right data for the analyses. That was already very instructive. They taught me to take more initiative, and not to keep searching on my own for too long when I get stuck. That’s a valuable lesson.
Technically, I’m also learning a lot. At school, we mainly worked with Azure, while here I’m really getting hands-on experience with Azure DevOps for the first time. I’ve learned to work in a more structured way: first the broad outlines, then the details. At Teal, you get a lot of responsibility, but also the freedom to figure things out and improve them yourself. And that teaches you a lot.”
Do you know someone who would like to do an internship with us next year? Spots are limited, so don’t wait too long. Send a message to thesis@tealpartners.com.
