My internship at Exeon – Louis Leclair, Back-End Developer Intern

We usually write a lot about industry news and our cutting-edge Network Detection & Response solution, ExeonTrace. However, just as much can be told about our company's core: the Exeon Team. In the first few months of 2022, our team grew by over 30%, and we are ambitious to expand even further in the future. With this mini blog series, our talented colleagues will provide personal insights into working at Exeon. In this blog post, we asked Louis Leclair, our backend development intern, to tell us about his 6-months long internship at Exeon.

Why did you decide to join Exeon?

I was studying Computer Science in the EPFL/ETH double degree programme with a major in cybersecurity. During my semester at ETH, I was looking for a developer internship in the field of cybersecurity. One of my friends who worked at Exeon told me about the company and how their product, ExeonTrace uses advanced AI algorithms to analyse and protect corporate networks. He found his time at Exeon very interesting and thought it could be a great experience for me too.

How was your recruitment and onboarding experience at Exeon?

The recruitment phase for me was fast; only 3 weeks passed from the moment the CTO received my CV to my onboarding. I also had the chance to meet the complete development team at the end of my coding interview. Although this was a bit stressful, it was also really cool to meet my future co-workers in advance. After a few days of onboarding, I found myself involved in product development and fully integrated in the development team.

What is the scope of your daily activities?

As a member of the development team, my daily activities span from solving bugs in ExeonTrace to adding new features. I also maintain the code base and update it when required. It is really special to me that I am fully involved in product development and to see my code implemented in ExeonTrace. I also get to attend every development sync, sprint planning and participate in code review and manual testing. This gives me lots of opportunities to learn.

What is something valuable you contributed to Exeon that you are most proud of?

I worked a lot on improving old analysers and my updates became part of the latest software release of ExeonTrace. These analysers identify anomalies in network traffic, and they are core elements of our software. I am also really proud of the fact that some features I worked on are now in the product and have a direct impact on the user experience.

What do you like most about Exeon? And what surprised you most about the company?

The flexibility to arrange your own working hours and the possibility to work remotely. As my universities require me to commute between Lausanne and Zurich, and my family lives in France, this flexibility really helps. I also like how friendly and supportive people are when you need help. The biggest surprise to me was that I can contribute to the main product, ExeonTrace. As an intern, I expected to work on side projects, however, I am treated like an equal member of the team.

What is something Exeon could still improve?

Nothing comes to mind. The company is good like it is and just needs more time to grow. I think we could especially use more people in the development team, as we have a lot of features to implement and fix.

Where do you see Exeon in 5 years?

On top of the world! More seriously, to be a major actor in the Network Detection & Response (NDR) market.

To whom would you recommend Exeon as an employer and what was your biggest learning during your internship?

As a developer, if you would like to discover how a fast-growing scale-up functions, code in Scala and have a general interest in cybersecurity, Exeon will fulfil all these wishes. From a personal development point of view, during these six months, I refined my coding skills and learned a lot about the development workflow and teamwork, which will be helpful in my future career.