Interview with Afonso Simões: An Internship, a Challenge, and a Future in Code

Afonso, tell us a bit about yourself. What led you to choose the tech field?
I’m 20 years old, born and raised in Coimbra, where I still live. Besides programming and software development, my main hobby I also enjoy playing sports and the guitar.
My interest in technology started during high school when I enrolled in the Science and Technology track, mainly because I didn’t yet know what career I wanted to pursue. During the summer before my final year, I came across aPython course on YouTube and decided to try it. I ended up really enjoying programming and spent that summer building simple projects like a calculator. Later, after finishing high school, I chose to study Computer Engineering to dive deeper into the tech field and explore a career in programming.

What is your degree exactly, and what do you enjoy most about it?
I’m just finishing my bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, with a focus on Application Development. Besides giving me a strong foundation to keep learning new technologies, what I enjoyed the most was gaining hands-on experience, especially building full web applications from end to end. I also appreciated the emphasis on teamwork, as we did many group projects.

What was it like studying at ISEC, and how did that help you reach moOngy and team-it?
ISEC provided me with solid foundations and helped me grow through various group projects, which really developed my technical and teamwork skills. In the final semester, we had the opportunity to do a curricular internship, which made the transition to the professional world much smoother. The internship offer from team-it immediately caught my attention because it focused on modern technologies and a Full Stack development challenge.

These four months flew by! Can you summarize how they were structured and what you did in each phase?
They were divided into several phases, and throughout, I had the support of my mentor, Ricardo Pinto. The first week and a half was dedicated to learning technologies I wasn’t familiar with. The next phase was planning the app and creating simple mockups to outline the user interface. The third and longest phase was the actual development of the application. In parallel, I also worked on my internship report, with lots of help from Ricardo. In the final week, I focused on preparing the final presentation.

What was the challenge presented by moOngy Labs that led to the Data Morph project?
The challenge was to create a web application capable of transforming CSV files using natural language commands.

What was the development process like? What technologies did you use, and how were the tools selected?
The development was continuous, with three weekly meetings to solve doubts and show progress. The technologies were already defined when the project was presented to me. I used React with TypeScript for the frontend, .NET with C#and Flask with Python for the backend, GPT-4o-mini for the AI component, SQLServer for the database, Docker as an additional tool, and GitHub for version control.

This internship had a strong practical component. How did the support from the Labs team make a difference?
The guidance came exclusively from Ricardo Pinto. We had three meetings per week, about 30 minutes each. These sessions and his availability for follow-up via messages or email were essential for my learning and for the success of the project.

What can you tell us about DataMorph? What is its purpose and potential use?
DataMorph is an application that allows users to transform CSV files using only natural language. It can be especially useful for professionals in fields like management, marketing, or HR who need to work with data but don’t have technical knowledge or prefer not to depend on others to handle that part of the process.

You defended your thesis recently! Do you think this hands-on experience gave you an edge academically and professionally?
Yes! I defended my internship report last week and received a score of 19 out of 20. I believe this experience gave me a real advantage both through the knowledge I gained and by having a six-month real-world project on my CV as I finish my degree.

Now that you’re closing this chapter, have you thought about your next steps? Is there a particular technology or area you’d like to specialize in?
Now that I’m finishing this phase, I’d like to pursue a career in Full Stack development. I haven’t chosen a specific technology to specialize in yet, but I know I want to keep learning and growing in this field. My next step is to finda job where I can apply and continue to build on what I’ve learned.

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