From Cadet to Engineer: How I Launched My Fintech Career at Maya

The Maya Cadetship program is a comprehensive talent development program where blended approaches are deployed to help prepare cadets for engineering roles of the future. It provides cadets with opportunities to demonstrate individual strengths, aspirations and values.

I had first heard about Maya’s (previously PayMaya) cadetship program a few months before I had graduated from college. Our home organization had an event where Maya was able to promote the cadetship to us.

Applying for the cadetship program was a convenient process. I sent my application through LinkedIn and, in just a few days, I had been contacted about the cadetship program. I proceeded with my application by following through a coding exam and a technical interview. The coding exam contained a few coding problems designed to test one’s problem-solving ability and algorithm comprehension. The technical interview consisted of conversations regarding past experiences and current knowledge and skills.

The Maya cadetship program lasted about 6 months. To start the cadetship, Maya held a Blast Off event where we were oriented on Maya’s culture and technologies. The first few days embedded in us the importance of achieving financial inclusion for everyone and the belief that we could accomplish such a mission with Maya’s technologies and practices.

Our cadetship experience was unique, to say the least. We were hired while lockdown regulations were still strictly in place, so everything had to be held online. Even then, Maya had worked around this limitation and was able to give us everything we needed, such as sending our required work materials to our homes and holding informative sessions that introduced us to being part of the Maya workforce. This may be different moving forward, but this shows Maya’s initiative and flexibility even when encountering unexpected circumstances.

In the following weeks, we were presented with numerous workshops and immersions. The workshop sessions covered topics such as Git, Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS, tools which would be useful in any technology-driven industry. The immersions taught and familiarized us with the different departments and technologies used within Maya. These were all done to help us understand which fields we were most comfortable with and which we truly wanted to pursue.

Some projects given to us involved data science and analysis, while others allowed us to work on our frontend and backend development skills. These projects revolved around actual features and improvements Maya was working on, so our efforts were worthwhile. During the cadetship, we were also assigned coaches whom we could approach for professional or personal guidance. Even when we encountered difficult problems in our projects, it was relieving to know that help was readily available should we need it.

Most of the cadets, including me, were new graduates and knew little to nothing about the tech industry. Seeing and learning about Maya’s tech culture was nothing short of a pleasant surprise. To me, it seemed that Maya truly only wanted the best technologies to also provide the best services for its customers.

Throughout the whole cadetship program, I’ve learned countless new technologies and practices that equip me to be a better developer. It was a challenging program, but overall, it was a fun and fulfilling experience.

I’ve since graduated from the cadetship program and started working as a Software Engineer for the company. Being in Maya has helped me grow as a person, both in terms of character and skills. All in all, I’m glad to be learning new things every day all the while being a part of Maya’s mission to innovate the fintech industry.