OpenDaylight Intern Spotlight: André Martins

OpenDaylight accepted seven student interns for the summer of 2014 to work in the community and receive hands-on development experience in SDN. Each intern worked closely with an active OpenDaylight developer as their mentor on a project that suited interest and community need.

This blog series aims to showcase the interns chosen and the projects they actively worked on, the mentors who aided in their professional development and the overall experience of working in an open source community to create a common platform for SDN and NFV.

About André Martins
André is 24 years old and currently lives in Portugal. He concluded his master's degree in Computers and Telematics Engineering at University of Aveiro with a master's dissertation on "Critical Ethernet based on OpenFlow."          

How did you hear about OpenDaylight and what got you interested in this internship?
I heard about OpenDaylight when I was searching for a controller to develop my applications for my dissertation. I got interested in this internship, because it had a project (Host Tracker) that needed to be ported to MD-SAL. One of the bundles my application uses is Host Tracker. I thought the internship was a good opportunity for me to contribute my knowledge and create a new bundle for Host Tracker. The fact that there are many contributors on this open source gives me the possibility to learn more and receive sound advice from the more senior developers in the community.

Can you talk about your experience working on an open source project? Any previous experiences you can share or key learnings from working on OpenDaylight?
The OpenDaylight Project is my first experience working on an open source project, and it exceeded my expectations. I never realized how many different people (around the globe) could work on a single project!

What was the best thing you’ve learned from your internship?        
Experience. It’s one thing to make projects for school, but it’s another thing to say you were part of a real project with real code that will be used by numerous people and companies.

Who was your mentor and what’s the experience been like so far?
My mentor was Colin Dixon -- he is great! Colin is a great advocate for the project and was very supportive of my work. He was always there to answer my questions or provide resources in the community that would help me learn.

What would be your dream job?
My dream job would definitely be a job without working hours. It is really difficult for me to stop thinking about a problem that I have when I am developing. Even if I had to enter at 9 am and get out by 6 pm, I would be thinking about that problem and trying to solve it in my house when I got back from work.

What’s your advice to other aspiring developers out there?
I think I am too young to give advice, but what I would say is, don't be afraid to ask questions. There is always someone willing to help you learn.

What gets you jazzed to write code? Listening to music, drinking coffee, chatting in IRC, etc.?
Listening to music and preferably at night. I don’t drink coffee by choice!

Being a developer allows you to work from anywhere in the world and interact with lots of different people. What have you found most surprising about the developer community?
Even with different time zones and working in a global community like OpenDaylight, there was always time for meetings and to move work forward.