TL;DR: Joined GrowFi as a Software Developer Intern during a pivotal moment—both for the company and my career. The Myanmar-based e-commerce startup was pivoting due to the ongoing war, and I found myself building an Ethereum-powered currency exchange marketplace MVP while learning Next.js, React, and Firebase Functions on the fly. The relaxed but undisciplined environment was a crash course in startup realities, self-direction, and the difference between structured engineering and scrappy execution.
Key lessons: early internships shape your baseline expectations, unstructured environments demand self-discipline, building MVPs teaches you to ship despite uncertainty, and sometimes the most valuable experience comes from seeing what not to do.
🛣️ The Journey
In September 2022, I joined GrowFi as a Software Developer Intern. It was my first real taste of startup life, and I walked into a company in transition.
GrowFi had built a peer-to-peer e-commerce platform serving Myanmar, but the escalating war that year had forced the team to reconsider their direction. When I arrived, the pivot was already underway—the company was exploring new opportunities, trying to find stable ground in an unstable situation.
The team was small. Two senior engineers when I started, but one left midway through my internship as his contract expired. What remained was a lean, scrappy team trying to navigate both technical challenges and existential business questions.
For three months, I immersed myself in this environment—adding features to the existing e-commerce platform, participating in discussions about potential pivot directions, and ultimately building a prototype that would become my main contribution.
🔧 The Technical Work
1. 🏗️ Building the Currency Exchange MVP
My primary project was building an MVP for a currency exchange marketplace powered by the Ethereum blockchain. This wasn't just a theoretical exercise—it was a real potential pivot point for the company.
The concept was compelling: create a marketplace where users could exchange currencies using blockchain technology, providing transparency and potentially lower fees than traditional exchanges. For a company with roots in Myanmar, where currency instability and access to traditional financial services were ongoing challenges, the idea had real merit.
I built the prototype from scratch using technologies I was learning as I went:
- Next.js and React for the frontend, creating a responsive interface where users could initiate and track exchanges
- TailwindCSS for rapid UI development, learning to balance utility-first styling with maintainable code
- Headless CMS to manage content and configuration without rebuilding the application
- Firebase Functions for serverless backend logic, handling transaction coordination and business rules
- Ethereum integration for blockchain functionality, learning Web3 concepts while implementing them
The MVP demonstrated the core user flow: connecting wallets, initiating exchanges, and completing transactions on-chain. It wasn't production-ready—MVPs never are—but it was functional enough to validate the concept and generate discussions about feasibility.
2. 🛠️ Contributing to the E-Commerce Platform
Beyond the blockchain prototype, I spent time adding features to GrowFi's existing e-commerce platform. This work was less glamorous but equally educational—learning to navigate an existing codebase, understand business requirements, and ship incremental improvements.
These contributions ranged from UI enhancements to backend features, each one teaching me something about how production systems evolve and how user needs translate into technical requirements.
3. 💡 Advising on Pivot Directions
As an intern, I didn't expect to be consulted on strategic decisions. But in a small startup during a crisis, everyone's input mattered. I participated in discussions about potential pivot directions, offering technical perspectives on feasibility, development timelines, and architectural considerations.
This was my first exposure to the business side of engineering—understanding that technical decisions exist within larger strategic contexts, and that sometimes the best technical solution isn't the right business move.
🌊 The Environment
1. 😌 Relaxed but Undisciplined
The work environment at GrowFi was relaxed. There wasn't the intensity I'd later experience at places like SolanaFM. No pressure-cooker deadlines, no rigorous code review processes, no elaborate testing frameworks or CI/CD pipelines.
But relaxed came with a tradeoff: lack of discipline. The structure and processes that larger companies use to maintain quality, velocity, and alignment were largely absent. There were no formal sprint planning sessions, no established coding standards, no systematic approach to technical debt.
For a first internship, this was a mixed blessing. On one hand, I had enormous freedom to explore, experiment, and ship without bureaucratic overhead. On the other hand, I lacked the guardrails that help junior engineers develop good habits and avoid common pitfalls.
I learned to be self-directed by necessity. Without structured processes, I had to create my own—deciding what to build, how to build it, and when it was good enough to ship. This autonomy was empowering but also overwhelming at times.
2. 👥 Learning in a Shrinking Team
Starting with two senior engineers and quickly becoming one created an interesting dynamic. I had less mentorship available, but more responsibility thrust upon me. Questions I might have asked a senior colleague became problems I had to solve independently or through documentation and online resources.
This taught me resourcefulness. When you can't walk over to a senior engineer's desk for help, you learn to read documentation more carefully, debug more systematically, and build confidence in your own problem-solving abilities.
🎓 The Lessons
1. 🎯 First Experiences Shape Baselines
As my first internship, GrowFi shaped my baseline expectations about professional software development. I learned what startup engineering looked like—the good (autonomy, diverse responsibilities, direct impact) and the challenging (lack of structure, resource constraints, uncertainty).
More importantly, subsequent experiences at places like SolanaFM would teach me what I'd been missing—the value of structured processes, experienced mentorship, and engineering rigor. You can't appreciate what you haven't experienced, and GrowFi gave me a reference point for comparison.
2. 🧗 Self-Discipline in Unstructured Environments
Without external structure, internal discipline becomes critical. The relaxed environment meant I could coast if I wanted to, but I'd only be cheating myself. I learned to set my own standards, create my own processes, and hold myself accountable.
This self-discipline would prove invaluable later. Structured environments provide scaffolding, but eventually every engineer needs to operate independently. GrowFi forced me to develop that muscle early.
3. 🚢 Shipping Despite Uncertainty
Building the currency exchange MVP during a company pivot taught me to ship despite uncertainty. I didn't know if the pivot would succeed, if the MVP would be used, or if the company would survive. But the work still mattered—as a learning experience, as a demonstration of capabilities, as a contribution to exploring possibilities.
This lesson—that you can build valuable things even when outcomes are uncertain—has stayed with me. Not every project succeeds, but every project teaches you something.
4. 🔍 Learning What Not to Do
Sometimes the most valuable lessons come from seeing what doesn't work. GrowFi's lack of engineering discipline, while offering freedom, also revealed the consequences: inconsistent code quality, unclear technical direction, difficulty onboarding new team members, and accumulated technical debt.
Later, when I encountered well-structured engineering organizations, I appreciated their processes not as bureaucratic overhead but as solutions to real problems I'd witnessed firsthand.
5. 🌐 Web3 as a Gateway
Building the Ethereum-powered marketplace was my introduction to blockchain and Web3 technologies. While I'd later develop more nuanced views about blockchain's appropriate use cases, this project demystified the technology and gave me hands-on experience with concepts I'd only read about.
It also taught me to evaluate technologies critically—understanding not just how they work, but when they're the right tool and when they're overkill.
💭 Reflections
The Value of Early Experiences
Looking back, GrowFi was exactly the right first internship for me. It wasn't perfect—far from it—but it gave me room to explore, make mistakes, and learn through doing rather than through following prescribed processes.
A more structured first internship might have taught me best practices earlier, but it also might have made me dependent on those structures. GrowFi taught me to be resourceful, self-directed, and comfortable with ambiguity—qualities that served me well in subsequent roles.
The Human Element
Beyond the technical work, GrowFi exposed me to the human side of startups—the stress of pivots, the impact of external events (like war) on business viability, the challenge of maintaining team morale during uncertainty. These weren't just technical problems, and they couldn't be solved with better code.
This broader perspective—that software engineering exists within human and business contexts—has shaped how I approach problems ever since.
🎯 The Takeaway
My three months at GrowFi were formative. I learned to code in unfamiliar frameworks, ship products under uncertainty, operate without extensive guidance, and navigate the messy reality of startup life.
More importantly, I learned that engineering isn't just about writing code—it's about solving problems in context, balancing technical ideals with practical constraints, and shipping value despite imperfect circumstances.
GrowFi wasn't a typical first internship, and I'm grateful for that. The relaxed, undisciplined environment forced me to develop self-direction and resourcefulness. The company's pivot taught me about business realities. The technical challenges pushed me to learn quickly and ship confidently.
Every engineer's path is shaped by their early experiences. GrowFi shaped mine, and I carried those lessons forward to every role that followed.