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Experimenting with GitHub Actions: PoC to Solution
The Infrastructure Engineering team is responsible for developer tooling at NerdWallet.  We like to run short, one or two week experiments (Proof of Concept or PoC) to prove out options…
Piggy – A Developer Tooling Retrospective
Introduction This post describes the evolution of piggy, an extensible React Native developer tooling solution written in Electron, used by NerdWallet’s mobile development team to fill gaps in the React Native ecosystem. piggy started life in early 2018 as an internal app, but was recently released open source under the MIT license. It is distributed […]
Representation Matters
A reflection on why representation matters to me as a woman in software engineering. I am a software developer by trade after going through a coding bootcamp. I remember my cohort having this collective sigh of relief to have survived and graduated from an intense 3-month program. As we nervously faced the pressure of job […]
Three Things that Make or Break Your Remote Internship
When interviewing with NerdWallet, I dreaded knowing what remote work would be like. I thought I wouldn’t know my coworkers’ faces, be on my own in my project, or leave the internship without genuine relationships with my peers. Over the last few months interning at NerdWallet, I’ve learned that wasn’t the case, and I encourage […]
Why You Should Be Doing Self-Reviews
A few months ago, one of my colleagues posted on our internal engineering slack channel about behavior he had noticed in a pull request he reviewed. I love a great PR description, and this one is amazing. Has all the good stuff – why the work is being done, the high level changes, how it relates […]
Change Data Capture at NerdWallet
NerdWallet’s mission is to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. That’s a tall order which requires delivering quality information and recommendations to consumers in a timely fashion. If you use the NerdWallet app or website then you may have received one of our emails or push notifications, such as alerts about recent changes […]
Top 9 Things to do During your NerdWallet Internship
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Sakina Mithani shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Meet new people – NWConnect / MeetANerd Are you interested in […]
The Importance of Asking Questions
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Lucy Yu shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Asking questions can be scary, especially as an intern. It […]
Can TikTok Help Me Be More Productive?
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Sakina Mithani shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! When I first started my remote internship at NerdWallet approximately 4 […]
Tips to Keep Work-life Balance in WFH Situation
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Lucy Wu shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! After one month into my internship, looking at the small […]
Being a NerdWallet Intern Twice in One Year: A Nerdling’s Journey
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Kenny Rozario shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Butterflies. Even with four other internships completed, I had butterflies […]
Beyond the Browser: How NerdWallet Went Native
At NerdWallet, our guiding vision has always been a world where everybody can make financial decisions with confidence.  Over the years, this vision has steered NerdWallet from its humble origins as a credit card comparison tool toward a far broader and more ambitious set of undertakings.  Perhaps the most profound microcosm of this evolution is […]
Adapting and Excelling at Your First Job out of School, Remotely
I started my first job (SWE @ NerdWallet) out of school back in May. Like a lot of my peers, I started remotely. I remember feeling nervous and anxious about transitioning and adapting to this new way of working. I already had feelings of imposter syndrome (I hope my team likes me, I hope they […]
WFH vs WFO: A Day In the Life of a Software Engineering Intern
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Helen Tang shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Have you ever wondered how a typical WFH day during […]
4 Things to Know Before You Start Developing in Go
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Alex Sanchez shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! The Go (also called “Golang”) programming language was first released […]
Redux to Apollo: Data Access Patterns
As part of NerdWallet’s migration from our React-Redux code base to client state management using Apollo, we’ve been exploring how to effectively implement data access patterns, side-effects handling, and other aspects of client state management using GraphQL and Apollo Client. This first post examines how we accomplish effective data access, filtering and transformation on the […]
Security Engineering vs. Software Development
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Internship program. Saswata Gupta shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! What This Is About I’ve just finished up with my […]
The Virtual GHC 2020 Nerd Takeaway
This year, a group of Nerds attended the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). In addition to Nerds from our Women in Engineering and Data ERG group, it was the first time NerdWallet allies also attended. GHC is a computing conference that celebrates women in technology, and was virtual this year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
Project Proposals: A Practical Approach
Learning how to effectively write a project proposal or technical design is an incredibly important element of a software engineer’s skillset. It’s the primary way to communicate what you’ll be working on and why it matters to a wider audience. The resulting documents serve as an invaluable resource when trying to understand any large engineering […]
5 Key Remote Internship Learnings
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Lorraine Li shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Internships are a great way for students to be able to explore […]
Navigating a remote internship in 2020
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Max Morales shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Hey! My name is Max Morales and I have had the […]
Four Important Reflections On Virtual Internships
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Christina Le shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! June 1st was a day I had been anticipating for months. […]
The Untold Secrets To Mastering the NERDWALLET INTERNSHIP In Less Than TEN MINUTES
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Crystal Wang shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! DISCLAIMER: Described experiences may differ; nonetheless, prescribed advice will still apply, […]
Turn to the (Virtual) Nerds
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Aaron Kyei-Asare shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Entering my senior year of college, I found myself in a […]
Maintaining Effective Communication As A Remote Nerdling
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Tiana Nguyen shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Communication is always important in the workplace and when working in […]
Building Strong Mentor-Mentee Relationships in a Remote Environment
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Anlin Chen shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Mentors are an amazing resource for practical advice, technical guidance, and candid […]
5 Pytest Best Practices for Writing Great Python Tests
Pytest has a lot of features, but not many best-practice guides. Here’s a list of the 5 most impactful best-practices we’ve discovered at NerdWallet. At NerdWallet, we have a lot of production python code – and a lot of it is tested using the great pytest open source framework. The framework has some excellent documentation […]
3 Tips to Succeeding as a Remote Intern @ NerdWallet
About the author: My name is Helen Tang. I’m a fourth year computer engineering student at the University of Waterloo. I was a Software Engineering Intern on the Frontend Infrastructure team at NerdWallet from January to May, 2020. January, 2020. I was excited. I felt the adrenaline rush as I packed up my bags for […]
The Grace Hopper Celebration 2019 Nerd Takeaway
A group of Nerds from our Women in Engineering and Data ERG group attended the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in Orlando, Florida. GHC is a computing conference that amplifies the research and career interests of women in tech, and is the world’s largest gathering of women in tech. Here are our takeaways to help you […]
Money Movement Platform
Introduction Background NerdWallet has evolved over the years, from providing long-form financial information and interactive calculators to offering a diverse set of logged-in services. Now, users can link their bank accounts, see where they are spending money, get their credit score, etc. As time went by, we wanted to do more for our users so […]
Getting started with GraphQL and Apollo (Part 1)
NerdWallet recently prioritized implementing GraphQL as a major engineering initiative in an effort to standardize our APIs, increase our development efficiency, and reduce code duplication. At NerdWallet, engineers developing mobile and web applications leverage numerous shared services, from a global authentication service to more product-specific services, such as providing personalized mortgage rates. These services are […]
Using Amazon SageMaker to Build a Machine Learning Platform with Just Three Engineers
Previously, we wrote about why we built our Machine Learning Platform and the impact it had on our workflow. It helped us ship models to production in days instead of months. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into exactly how we leveraged Amazon SageMaker to build this platform – with just three engineers! My hope […]
Turn to the Nerdlings: My SWE Internship at NerdWallet
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Annie Nguyen is a student at UC Berkeley and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! I can’t believe 11 weeks […]
Attending Nerdling University
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. David Margolin is a student at Hunter College and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! This summer I had […]
5 Things to Know About Being an Intern @ NerdWallet
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Daniel Mao is a student at UC Berkeley and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! Nearly every student studying Computer […]
Migrating from Redux to GraphQL: A NerdWallet Internship Experience
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Ming Horn is a student at Mills College and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! This summer, I’ve worked as […]
Why Intern at NerdWallet?
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Ilona Bodnar is a student at USC and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! As a student with a lot […]
Four Things I Learned During My Summer Internship with NerdWallet
The following article is part of a series of articles about our NerdWallet Summer Internship program. Jacqui Levitan is a student at Duke University and shared their experience as an software engineer intern. If you are curious about joining NerdWallet as an intern or full-time employee, please apply for one of our open positions! I’ve spent […]
The GHC 2018 Nerd Takeaway
Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) is the world’s largest celebration for women in technology. The event is hosted by AnitaB.org annually to honor Grace Hopper for being a pioneer in the field of technology and for encouraging women to pursue technical roles. As you gear up for this year’s conference in Orlando, Florida at the Orange […]
How NerdWallet Dialed Machine Learning up to 11
NerdWallet’s mission is to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. We do this via scores of helpful content, tools that provide comparisons of various financial products, and tons of financial insights and actions, including credit report monitoring and automated money transfer. While all of this information is useful, “clarity” is impossible to achieve […]
Exploring the Engineering Job Architecture at Nerdwallet
In an earlier post, we described how putting a job architecture in place has helped us grow as a team. As we prepare for the Summer 2019 review process, we wanted to share this document out to show what we expect from our engineers and give them a clearer path on how to grow within the field. […]
The GHC 2018 Journey
The GHC 2018 Journey GHC Planning Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) is the world’s largest celebration for women in technology. The event is hosted by AnitaB.org annually to honor Grace Hopper for being a pioneer in the field of technology and for encouraging women to pursue technical roles. The conference is held in the fall, usually […]
Mindful Code Reviews
Introduction A considerable part of my day as an engineer involves giving or receiving code-reviews. I most frequently converse with many colleagues via these reviews; in that sense, code-reviews are the currency of engineering thought. That’s why I believe that culture is both reflected in and informed by how teams go through the code-review process. […]
Building Engineering Careers at NerdWallet
At NerdWallet we have a bi-annual review cycle to evaluate how we are doing both as NerdWallet engineers and as professionals. As a part of reviews, we use a standard job architecture when performing evaluations across the organization, with the intent that everyone is judged on a level playing field. After our most recent review […]
Shepherd: Automating Cross-repo Code Changes
At NerdWallet, we’ve fully embraced a modern microservice architecture. Our website is made up of dozens of React apps that pull content and data from a variety of internal services. This way of working has clear benefits: teams can work independently, iterate quickly, and deploy frequently with fault isolation. When working with so many codebases, […]
Building a product platform at NerdWallet – Part 2
In Part One we spoke about the charter of the Product Platform team, how that led to some interesting technical challenges, and one way that we’ve solved these challenges. Concretely, we discussed how we settled on a Search API powered by Elasticsearch, and a persistent data store powered by Postgres. In this post, we’ll continue […]
Building a product platform at NerdWallet – Part 1
Introduction NerdWallet’s mission is to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. This means we have reams of content and tens of thousands of financial product recommendations across verticals as diverse as auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and savings accounts. Keeping this information consistent, compliant and up-to-date across our entire product offering is a […]
Working at a Startup as a New College Grad
I’d be lying to you if I said my first day at NerdWallet could not have gone any smoother. In fact, it could have gone so much smoother that by the end of the day, it seemed like more things had gone wrong, than had gone right. I decided to join NerdWallet as a full […]