WIMTACH Student Profile: Michael Asemota

While still a student in the Software Technology program at Centennial College, Michael Asemota decided to apply for a Student Researcher position at WIMTACH after learning about the great opportunities to improve software development skills. “I always wanted to join WIMTACH so I was glad that I got the opportunity to,” he said.

Since joining WIMTACH in September 2020, he has been able to contribute to projects in various roles including his role as a Quality Assurance Associate, as a Front-End Developer, and as a Back-End Developer. He has also had the opportunity to perform research on the technology that has been used by the WIMTACH team on some projects. Currently, as a Front-End developer, he is working with Angular. “I’ve been a bit of everywhere and I’m glad I did just to kind of see what I liked and what I didn’t like,” he said.

Through his various roles at WIMTACH, he was able to determine that he enjoys Front-End Development the most. “I enjoy it just because you get to visually see the progress that you are making and when you make a mistake, it tells you right away. It kind of shouts at you on the screen,” he said.

Still, he values the chance to work on projects with roots in different industries. Most recently, his contribution on a project collaboration between WIMTACH and Xello Inc., enabled him to enhance his development skills and professionalism. “I learned a lot from my teammates, the group of WIMTACH [student developers] that were on this project, I learned a lot from them in terms of good coding practices,” he said.

The project collaboration enabled him to gain valuable exposure to senior developers as well as a deeper understanding of the software industry and the career paths that are available to him. “It gave me an understanding of what the industry is like and I feel like it definitely opened up my eyes,” he said.

As a result, Michael has enjoyed working at WIMTACH. He found that the supportive learning environment at WIMTACH was especially helpful on the project that he is currently involved in. “I enjoy it a lot,” he said. “There is always somebody there to give you a hand and just swarm on any issues so, for me I think that was kind of the part that made me enjoy it so much. Everybody is so willing to help out one another.”

Most recently he was able to briefly meet some of his teammates at the WIMTACH office after months of meeting through Zoom and he was reminded of the impact of his relationships that he’s built. “That collaborative environment is very special,” he said. “It was the most memorable [experience].”

He explained that getting real world experience at WIMTACH has been very beneficial. “Especially as a student, employers are looking for experience in the people that they hire so if you already have that experience you kind of have a leg up in a way,” he said.

In particular, knowing that the contributions he made at WIMTACH were meaningful to his teammates and to external clients was important to him. “Working with your fellow classmate on projects that impact different companies … the learning process that you may not have learned in class … there’s a lot of positives with WIMTACH,” he said.

While he will miss the work environment at WIMTACH, he is excited about the opportunities that his Student Researcher position has opened for him. He recently accepted a job offer to join Roger’s New Graduate Digital program in May 2022. He will be rotating through different departments and perform some of the tasks that he has already done as a Student Researcher, WIMTACH.

He was always confident about his ability to find a meaningful role because of his position at WIMTACH. “I don’t think I was really that worried because of the amount of experience from Co-op and WIMTACH,” he said.

Looking back on his time at WIMTACH, he realized how much he has grown his knowledge as a student developer. “I felt like I [initially] had experience on the QA side but not necessarily on the other side of things so basically like: Front-End and Back-End and mobile but, now I definitely feel confident in those areas in terms of using angular and Front-End best practices,” he said.

In five years, he sees himself as a senior developer and he attributes this confidence to the amount of work experience that he’s been able to attain through his Student Researcher position at WIMTACH. “I say Wimtach has helped me in my journey just because of the experience,” he said. “You get so much work experience while you’re in school … I definitely think it will help me to get a leg up in the industry.”

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