It seems like just yesterday that we created a post talking with our eager Summer interns about their plans for their tenure here at ROBLOX. Alas, time flies, and Merely, Seranok, MrDoomBringer and Stravant have completed their internships, and are off to continue studying Computer Programming at universities around the world. Before they left, we chatted with them about making the jump from user to employee, and what you can do to get your foot in the door.

ROBLOX: It seems like you guys just got here, and you’re already on the way out. Tell me a bit about each of your jobs over the summer here.

MrDoomBringer: Well, I did mostly back-end work, and a lot of moderation as well. I worked on developing internal pages for company use, as well as worked on a few user-facing pages and made them look new and shiny. I also developed our automated testing solution–it’s my proudest achievement here, it’s robust and can handle as many things as you can throw at it. Ultimately, it will help make all of our testing (and trust me, there’s a lot) for ROBLOX.com much more consistent.

Merely: I worked primarily on bug fixes and other fixes to the website. I’ve also been really hard at work on a new outfits feature, which I hope to see live on ROBLOX in the near future. I don’t want to give too much away, because we’ll be putting together an entire blog post that will walk you through it. Basically, this system is going to allow you to save, load, and switch between custom clothing configurations. Just the general idea of being able to do this will open up many doors–I’m excited to see where we go with this!

Seranok: I ended up doing a ton of investigation work, especially regarding site security. I was constantly patching bugs related to that, and also wrote a few of our automated web tests. I’ve also been working on a secret project that makes loading content onto the website a lot prettier, and way more streamlined. Keep an eye out, I hear we’re releasing this soon.

ROBLOX: “Achievement Unlocked! Like a Bau5: Complete a ROBLOX Summer Internship.” What’s next? Take anything away from this that will help you in future endeavors?

MrDoomBringer: I’m heading out to upstate New York to continue studying at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), but don’t worry, I’m sticking around as a ROBLOX moderator. This was such a learning experience, especially in regard to writing code. I learned a lot about the internals of C#–which was a language I was barely familiar with before I started here. It’s a really popular language in my field, and experience with it looks great on a resume.

Merely: My brother and I will be headed back to Springfield, Illinois for our second year of college. The main thing I learned over the summer is what it’s like to work as a part of a team. I never had to work on code together with other people, which is actually entirely different. Every time you write new pieces of code, you have to ensure that they’re written in a way that not only you could recognize it. The review process really helped me stay organized and consistent.

Seranok: I learned that there’s a huge difference between knowing how to program, and knowing how to engineer. ROBLOX is like an intricately balanced house of cards (editor’s note: It’s not, but for the sake of the metaphor we’ll let it slide). When I started, I found myself making changes that were detrimental to the code base. I had to find ways to make changes that other people would understand, without tipping the house of cards. That’s why our review process was such a learning experience. It taught me how to segment my work, and keep each section consistent, easy to understand, and logical. Just to have someone say, “hey, this is the official way we do this,” really helped.

Stravant: I’m heading back to my third year of college in Alberta, Canada. I agree with Merely in that I wasn’t used to working on a team before I came aboard. Learning how to coordinate with a team of people on projects, both big and small, taught me so much. I also read at least 20,000 lines of C++ code, and that taught me a lot about how the engine works. Our engine has some really top-quality components, and it was cool to gain a deeper understanding of how they work.

ROBLOX: One of the most asked questions we get is “How do I work for ROBLOX?” Internships are a great place to start. Any advice or feedback?

MrDoomBringer: Two words: be useful. Sounds simple, but it’s an important idea to understand. You’re not coming here to hang out and play games, you’re here to help make an awesome game even more awesome. You should always be thinking that. How can I be useful? The more you can bring in–whether that’s in side projects you’ve worked on, scripting knowledge, the more things you dabble in before you get here, the better.

Seranok: Know your product. I’ve investigated ROBLOX as far back as I can remember, before getting a job was even a prospect. So before I even got here, I was a semi-expert on ROBLOX web pages and ROBLOX web security. This proved to be valuable to the web team, and made me feel appreciated. The years I spent learning the infrastructure of ROBLOX really paid off. In order to fix exploits, you have to have a really solid understanding of how each part of ROBLOX works, and how each of those pieces fit together.

Merely: If you want to do this type of work, start early by focusing on math and computer science, and I don’t just mean in school. There’s got to be two parts for this to work. You can’t be content with, “I’m taking some programming courses, so that’s all I need.” That’s the wrong way to think about it. Take some initiative, and constantly work on learning things on your own. The beauty of computer science is that you can learn so much on your own, by yourself, then supplement it with the knowledge you’re gaining in school. You need both parts to succeed.

Stravant: If you want to work at ROBLOX, show off your work, in one way or another. I’m telling you, ROBLOX is always keeping an eye on creations, users, levels–everything. It’s up to you to do something that will catch their attention. If you make something you’re really proud of, make a website and show it off. Get it out there. Get attention–that’s the best way to make an initial connection to any company. If you’ve got skills, take as many steps as you can to make sure the public knows.

We wish them all the best of luck!