The Cooperators

DevOps Co-op Student

September 2020- january 2021

quick facts

Canadian-owned co-operative with over 70 years of history
$47.3 billion in assets under management
Provides solutions for property and casualty insurance, life insurance, institutional asset management, and brokerage operations
Serves 241 credit unions with more than 5.8 million members

The Co-operators Group Ltd. is a co-operative headquartered in Guelph. This entity owns several operating companies, the largest of which is Co-operators General Insurance Company, which sells property and casualty insurance through its network of more than 485 exclusive agents.

It is one of the leading Canadian-owned multi-line insurers, offering auto, home, life, farm, travel and business insurance as well as investments. The Cooperators offers a great work environment with an emphasis on work-life balance that is highlighted by their flexible hours, competitive pay, and benefits.

The company receives several distinctions, including being consistently ranked among the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada by Corporate Knights , being listed among Aon’s Best Employers in Canada for 14 consecutive years, and being listed among Hewitt Associates’ “Green 30” – a list of Canada’s top employers that are highly regarded for their commitment to environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Devops co-op student

About the Position

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Daily Tasks

Create policies and submissions to be used for testing
Develop test cases and feature files for new features
Working with multiple branches/repositories in source control
Patch development and integration of new features

My Term Goals

Goal One

This position at The Cooperators is one that is usually taken on in person at their head office, with the support of their whole team. As it?s both my first experience with working remotely, and their first time having a co-op student out of the office, it will require a lot of communication to make sure things are running smoothly. I normally struggle with regular communication with my superiors as I overthink the necessity of checking in and worry that I?m adding to their workload. My goal for this term is to overcome this fear and improve my written communication skills so I can always have an up to date checklist of what I need to do, and the knowledge of how to accomplish this.

I plan on improving this skill by evaluating my messages to my superiors on a few objective bases in order to ensure the correct questions are asked. Firstly, I?ll ensure that I can?t find the answer in any previous communications or documentation that they?ve provided me. Next, if the answer to my inquiry seems simple and finding the answer would require me to spend an unreasonable amount of time looking through other sources, I should ask the question. Lastly, if continuing my work without asking the question could result in an incorrect solution and wasted time, I should ask the question.

I?ll know if I?m successful if by the end of the term I have increased my communication and no longer question myself about the frequency of checking in. I should have thorough understanding of what is required of me, and the knowledge to know the correct questions to ask. Communication between my superior and I should feel more comfortable and I shouldn?t have to ask the same question more than once.

Goal Two

This position also marks my first experience working as part of a scrum team. This means that we have ?sprints? that last anywhere from two to four weeks where we each have tasks that need to be completed by the end. My goal for this term is to organize my time in a way that allows me to have all tasks assigned to me completed by the end of the sprint. I don?t want to push back any release dates, so this goal is crucial to both the rest of the team and I to adhere to the set timelines.

I find that my biggest enemy in time management are the unexpected setbacks, wherein things end up taking much longer than expected. I plan on changing this by gathering as much information as possible about the tasks set out for me at the beginning of the sprint so I can more accurately gauge how long I?ll need to complete them. This will eliminate the need to wait to book meetings with team members in the middle of their tasks and will prevent me from spending too much time trying to figure things out on my own rather than getting the job done.

I?ll know if I?m successful if by the end of the term I can accurately organize a schedule to accommodate all tasks assigned to me so that they?re completed by each deadline. In the beginning, I?ll have to allot more time for asking questions or learning how to properly interact with the software, but by the end I?ll have more tasks at once that I can use my time towards. By the end of my term I should feel confident in my ability to deliver tested software on time to my superiors.

Goal Three

My previous co-op placement was exciting because I got to develop an independent piece of functioning software that I could call my own. However, most software development positions require integration and regression testing so that your work can be merged with an existing much larger project. This position will give me the opportunity to learn how to do so, wherein I am given access to the repository that houses the entire Policy Center project and asked to make small edits to accommodate new developments. My goal for this term is to learn the development and testing project for safe integration, and to see my edits being used as a later release.

I?ll know if I?m successful if by the end of my time at the Cooperators I have done backend development and integration, backend testing and documentation, and front-end testing and documentation independently. I will have followed the development cycle through to completion and have gained further understanding about the rigorous testing and care needed to integrate new development to an existing project.

My current task is to complete regression testing, wherein I test the newly added development in an emulator to ensure that the new addition doesn?t interfere with existing code, and results in the correct action. Once I understand front end testing and building thorough test matrices, I can move to development. This side is typically tackled by a different team than the regression testers, but this position offers me the chance to do both. On the development side, I can see how tasks are issued by the ticketing system, take them into the development environment, and move them to the approval state once finished backend testing. I plan on making several iterations of this cycle during my time at the Cooperators and hope that by the end of my time here I can see my code put into production.

Did I Achieve My Goals?

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I look forward to continuing my work with The Cooperators on a part-time basis until I can resume a full time commitment on my following work term.

New Marketable Skills

Patch Development and Integration
Cucumber Testing Framework
Experience with Eclipse, Jira, Confluence, Guidewire Studio and Software
Scrum Agile Environment
Attended an Acceptance Test-Driven Development Workshop

Building My New Resume

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contact me

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Updated Resume