At the end of January, Peter, a third-year university student, joined us at Zamzar’s headquarters for a week of work experience. Find out what he got up to, how he found working in a tech company, and what he was most proud of (hint: it wasn’t getting free pizza, but that might have come a close second!).
First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Peter, and I’m currently in my third and final year studying Computer Science at the University of Surrey. I’ve always enjoyed applying reasoning and logical thinking skills to solve problems (chess, Sudoku, etc.), so Computer Science was a natural choice for me. I’m hoping to have a future career somewhere in software development!
What have you been working on this week at Zamzar?
I was given the option of either building my own web app that incorporated Zamzar’s API [a file conversion interface for developers] or researching the potential of Model Control Protocol (MCP)* for future use at Zamzar. I went with the latter option.
[*Model Control Protocol (MCP) is a universal standard that connects AI systems to external tools like Zamzar’s file converter API. Before MCP, every AI had its own incompatible way of plugging into outside resources, meaning developers had to build separate connections for each AI system. MCP solves this by acting like a universal adapter: build one connection, and any AI that supports MCP can use it.]
How have you approached this?
As a starting point, I was provided with a lot of useful resources to help familiarise myself with MCP, including relevant articles and videos. I chose Claude AI* (free and easy to set up for MCP) and PHP (a popular [programming] language at Zamzar). On Monday, I created a quick program to get myself comfortable with Zamzar’s API. I spent the rest of the week building and refining a simple proof of concept for an MCP server.
[*Claude AI is an AI tool powered by large language models (LLMs), used in this case as a platform to build on top of.]
How has this gone? Was anything more difficult than expected? Was there anything you were particularly proud of?
Some of Monday and nearly all of Tuesday was spent downloading various packages and fulfilling Claude’s specific requirements for setting up an MCP server. This was a lot more time-consuming than I anticipated, but once I got Claude to acknowledge my server late on Tuesday, everything became a lot smoother. Developing my idea from initial research to a fully-functioning project felt very rewarding. I was also proud of spotting, and subsequently helping to flag, two (very minor) bugs on my first day!
Who did you work with during the week, and how did you collaborate? What did you notice about how developers work day-to-day?
I took part in one team meeting, as well as three individual meetings with Louis [Staff Software Engineer], Mike D [Senior Software Engineer] and Suzanne [Customer Success Manager], respectively. During the team meeting, all attendees (myself included) outlined what they had been working on over the week and what they planned to do. It highlighted for me the importance of collaboration at Zamzar, as everyone was actively asking questions about each other’s work and supporting one another when needed.
Individually, Louis, Mike and Suzanne were all very friendly and interesting to talk to. They gave me an insight into both what their roles consist of currently and what they might look like in the future, plus some useful advice for me as a final year university student.
What have you learned this week? Did you build confidence in any particular skill?
This project was completely novel for me from a technical standpoint – I hadn’t programmed in PHP before and was largely unfamiliar with Model Context Protocol. During the project, I experimented with various approaches and technologies and gradually developed my skills, asking questions where necessary. By the end of the week, I felt comfortable and confident in PHP and was able to produce a clear, concise explanation of MCP for the presentation slides I produced. I also improved at debugging more efficiently and working with the terminal*.
[*The terminal is a text-based window where you type commands to interact with your computer or a remote server.]
What has it been like working in a tech company? What surprised you most?
During the week, I learnt to appreciate the amount of work that is required to maintain a widely-used product like Zamzar, from handling a consistently high volume of customer queries to vigilantly monitoring servers for anything amiss.
What will you take away from this week? And what’s something you’d like to keep learning after this experience?
I really enjoyed the friendly, welcoming atmosphere at Zamzar, and the project itself was technically challenging and engaging. The week I attended also happened to coincide with a monthly networking session that took place at Network Eagle Labs [a business hub where Zamzar has an office that some of the team work from], which was a nice opportunity to meet people from other companies and eat pizza!
I’d like to use the experience as a springboard and continue to broaden the scope of both my technical skills and my soft skills, like communication and organisation.
Thanks for joining us, Peter! It was great having you as part of the team for the week, and we hope the rest of your final year at university goes well!
From the Zamzar team
