Stories

My Journey to Menlo (Oliver's Version)

Where it All Started

My journey at Menlo began at 9 years old, when my parents signed me up for a beginner programming course back in 2013 known as GameStart. Co-founded by two Menlo employees, this course taught children the basics of coding in the most useful and intuitive modern day development environment: Minecraft. As an avid Minecraft enthusiast, younger me could not have been more excited, and in his true 9 year old fashion decided to use his new found powers to spawn the largest block of digital TNT he could imagine.

Any time I trace back my passion for coding, I always end up at GameStart. It introduced me to the world of software development by using something I was passionate about to bring joy into learning. Fast forward 12 years and here I am studying computer science at the University of Wisconsin, and working as a summer employee (Menlo's version of an internship) for the company that inspired me to pursue programming in the first place.

Summer 2024 - Into the Deep End

In the summer of 2024, everything came full circle when I began working at Menlo as a summer employee. I knew about pair programming, test-driven development, and other processes that made Menlo unique. But with no experience in the field, the idea of going in blind to a company that is considered “unique” in the industry was equally exciting and nerve racking. On my first day, I didn’t expect much more than onboarding forms and orientation, but that could not have been further from what this day would hold. After a brief orientation, I was introduced to my two pair partners for the day, and then it was off to the races. Within 20 minutes of walking through the front door, I was already experiencing the first of many major skills I would learn that summer: learning by doing.

One of the reasons pair programming works so well is the flexibility when allocating developers to projects, because of context sharing. A fundamental part of Menlo development is tearing down “towers of knowledge” by constantly sharing context and information about the code with your pair partner. In order to teach more effectively, the person with less context on a project is typically the one who is driving, allowing them to gain hands-on experience with the project. Not knowing about this process at the time, I mentioned to my pair partner that I had never worked with that project’s language before. In the blink of an eye, my pair partner, who was driving at the time, pushed the keyboard to me so fast I swear it made sparks as it moved across the table.

I started the summer by working on an internal data visualization project designed to train developers in the same libraries used by a much larger client project. Before then, I had never worked in a code base that I hadn’t built mostly from the ground up, so getting adjusted to a new project was challenging at first. Being pushed to learn through experience not only allowed me to quickly pick up the project, but also entirely skipped what I thought would be an awkward phase of meeting my coworkers and figuring out what my place in the company was.

When I walked out of the office for the last time that summer, I felt like a new person. In those three months, not only did my programming skills develop at speeds I didn’t think were possible, but I had gained experience in project management, quality assurance, and client interactions. As I returned to Madison for another year of college, I was more excited and prepared than ever to tackle the challenges that would come my way and continue to grow as a developer and person.

“On Wisconsin”

After moving into my apartment in Madison, there was no time to waste. I decided to start the semester off strong by setting up a project board to organize my tasks. I created Menlo formatted story cards and placed them into lanes depending on what part of my life they applied to, just like a Work Authorization Board. Within an hour, I had written my first card: “House 1 - ENV - Configure ethernet connections” which tasked me with contacting my neighbor who had the modem in his room, and setting up an ethernet line running from there to my room.

As classes started, I was excited to learn that one of my computer science courses required unit testing and pair programming, only to have my hopes shattered when I learned that outside of Menlo, pair programming doesn’t usually mean sharing a single computer. Shortly after the start of the semester, I experienced a great feeling of validation and belonging when I got a text from a coworker over at Menlo asking for context on the project I had spent most of the summer on. While I had stayed in contact with several Menlonians over the course of the school year, there was something special about being asked for project knowledge after leaving that made me feel like I was still part of the team. Shortly after this, I reached out to Menlo once again and decided that I would be spending a second summer with them. As the year went on, I became increasingly excited to return and see how much everybody had grown, as well as exercise my own skills with another year of school under my belt.

Summer 2025 - Into the Deeper End

Walking back into the factory, the first day nervousness from a year ago was gone, with excitement and confidence taking its place. I had been through this process before and was ready to be onboarded to a brand new project and take it by the horns. “This time will be easier”, I thought to myself.

It was not.

Instead of being scheduled on a bench project designed to develop fundamental skills, I was immediately placed on a 10+ year old enterprise level full stack project that used services I had never even heard of before. The challenges of picking up this project were vast. Not only was the development work difficult, but working with and presenting to a large scale client is an entirely different ball game than doing client presentations to your coworkers. This project was especially unique as its processes differed from those of a typical Menlo project. Instead of Menlo being solely responsible for building the software, we worked with the client’s development, QA, and project management teams instead of our own, meaning that we mainly operated within the client’s standards and processes.

Adjusting to not only a vastly larger codebase, but also unique project operations was a challenge to say the least. It wasn’t any easier to get adjusted than it was the previous summer, but I was more prepared. Knowing the fastest way to get over that learning curve was to just jump in, I asked my pair partners to let me drive in unfamiliar territory. Beyond the scope of this project’s code, I was faced with new challenges that were unique to me this summer. One that really stands out to me is when I was asked to be a “context” holder, and bring a more senior developer from another project up to speed on mine. Going into the factory that day, I was faced with a familiar feeling of nervousness as this would be the first time I was asked to take on this responsibility, and given that I would be spinning up somebody with far more experience that I’d never paired with, I wanted to make a good impression. Similarly to my first day last year, I was amazed at how quickly the difference in experience stopped mattering to me, and it began to feel like normal pair programming.

"On Wisconsin" (The Sequel)

As I sit here in the Menlo factory writing this with my dog, Echo, as my pair partner, I’m thinking about how poetic it is that the same place that showed 9 year old me the joy of programming is also responsible for my greatest personal and professional development in the field over a decade later. The impact that my time here has had is surreal, and continues to inspire me in the same way it did as a child. In a few days, I’ll be returning to Madison with gratitude as I continue down the path of a developer, and I look forward to charging through another year of college, with another summer of growth behind me.

“Make mistakes faster” - Andrew Grove