From intern to Software Engineer II: what changed in six months

In January 2026 I joined Walmart as a Software Engineering Intern. In July 2026 I started as a Software Engineer II. This is a short note on what that transition looked like from the inside — what changed, and what stayed the same.

Everything here is described at a high level. The systems involved are internal, so I won't share code, architecture or internal details.

As an intern: building MyDay

My internship project was MyDay, an internal developer productivity platform. Engineers' days are spread across Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Jira and GitHub — meetings in one place, tasks in another, pull requests in a third. MyDay brings those together into a single view of meetings, schedule, tasks and engineering activity.

I built it as a full-stack application: a TypeScript/React frontend integrated with backend services and APIs. It ended up being used internally by developers as a side project to help with daily planning and context switching.

The most useful thing about an internship project like this is that it is end-to-end. You don't just implement a ticket; you decide what the product is, how data flows into it, and what the user sees first thing in the morning.

As a Software Engineer II: MetaHub

Since July I've worked as a Forward Deployed Engineer on the MetaHub team, which is building an enterprise platform to replace an Oracle-licensed platform. The work is end-to-end across the stack: frontend applications in TypeScript/React and backend services in Java/Spring Boot, plus contributing to platform architecture and engineering workflows.

What changed

Scope. An internship project has a clear boundary. A platform replacement touches existing users, existing data and existing expectations. The question shifts from "does my feature work?" to "does the system keep working for everyone who depends on it?"

The stack got wider. MyDay was mostly TypeScript/React with service integrations. On MetaHub, Java and Spring Boot sit alongside React, and decisions on one side of the stack shape the other.

Architecture becomes part of the job. Contributing to architecture and engineering workflows means writing code that other engineers will build on — so clarity and consistency matter as much as getting something working.

What stayed the same

• Understand the user first. Whether the user is a developer planning their day or a team relying on an enterprise platform, the work starts with what they actually need.
• Own things end-to-end. The habit of following a feature from UI to API to data was formed during the internship and is exactly what forward deployed work asks for.
• Ship, then improve. Getting a working version in front of users early is still the fastest way to learn what to fix.

Advice for interns aiming for a full-time offer

1. Treat your project like a product, not an assignment — know who uses it and why.
2. Learn the parts of the stack you weren't hired for.
3. Write things down: decisions, trade-offs, what you'd do next.
4. Make your work easy for the next engineer to pick up.

None of this is unique to Walmart. It's what I'd tell anyone starting their first engineering role.