Imago Intern Case Study: Pei Yee Lee
Third year Computer Science student Pei Yee Lee gained an interest in computing and its limitless applications while doing A levels in Malaysia. She followed an online coding course and found an early appeal in the parallels between spoken and coding languages. Much like writing an essay in different languages, the core idea stays the same but the structure and phrasing shifts. This natural comfort with adapting to different linguistic systems is what first drew her to coding.
Discovering Imago
She heard of the Imago Project through the Computer Science department’s weekly emails. Imago offers students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the software engineering sector through project-based internships. Project internships vary between five and fifteen weeks depending on the nature of the project and whether the student is working full or part time.
A Wealth of Workplace Experience Through Imago
Through her Imago Internship,Pei Yee built substantial technical experience from working for Imago. She noted that the nature of project work meant that learning never stopped. Depending on a project’s requirement, interns may need to work across different technology stacks, picking up unfamiliar frameworks, or find creative solutions to problems they have never encountered before. Rather than finding this daunting, she found it manageable thanks to the supportive environment fostered in Imago. Imago teammates were always encouraging and having support available to help unblock difficulties made even the steepest learning moments feel approachable.
Apart from the technical growth, she also gained other skills ranging from technical complexity decisions, to prioritising features that would deliver the most value to client within real constraints of time and feasibility. Instead of simply presenting options, she learned to liaise with clients to reach a genuine consensus, considering what was practical, what mattered most, and what could realistically be delivered.
Pair programming was another highlight where working alongside another developer toward a shared goal exposed her to different methods and perspectives. This helped her understand not just how to solve a problem, but to understand the thought process of others on why one approach might be better than another.
Preparation for the Corporate Workplace
One of the most valuable things she took from Imago was an introduction to professional engineering practices based mainly on Agile approaches. Pei Yee explained how her Imago supervisor structured the team’s work around clear, achievable weekly goals, teaching the team how to break larger problems down into manageable deliverables. The team also ran daily stand-ups and regular retrospectives. She also developed an understanding of how to communicate progress clearly, including to non-technical stakeholders.
Pei Yee views her Imago internship as being ‘very beneficial’. Experience gained with Imago provided her with more confidence going into her next role. She described having more courage to ask questions without hesitation, however trivial the questions might be. She learned to be precise about what information to share when asking for help, providing enough context for the other person to understand the problem but not so much that it became confusing. She sees her time with Imago as a ‘very good stepping stone’ to new opportunities.
Reaping the Rewards
Pei Yee secured an internship at Meta following on from her Imago internships and credits her Imago experiences with playing a significant role in getting it. The internship gave her a portfolio of real project work to draw on in interviews, concrete stories and examples to speak to, and shaped the way she thinks and communicates as a developer. At Meta, she was assigned to a team and project with similar parallels to her Imago work. She noted that the transition felt manageable because she had an idea of what to expect. Meta extended a return offer to her in 2025, whilst she was still in her second year, which she will be taking up when she graduates in June this year.
Pei Yee’s Advice to Prospective Imago Interns
She offers this advice to students: “Come with a genuine intention to learn, and don’t underestimate how much soft skills matter. Software development isn’t just technical, but it is also about how well you can work with others, how you can bring people along with you, how you bridge knowledge gaps and explain complicated things in a way that actually lands. Being a good collaborator is just as important as being a good coder.”
Pei Yee emphasises the shift in mindset required when moving from solo study to team-based work, moving from university individual work to working in a team. She notes there is a real adjustment from working on your own to working together where you have to learn to advocate for your own decisions. It is important to think critically why you’ve approached something a certain way whilst staying genuinely open to other perspectives. Collaborative decision-making means being willing to defend your thinking, but also being willing to change your mind when someone else’s approach is better.