Cameron Montesano Talks Important Learning Strategies via Interactions With PingOne Fraud

It can be difficult to learn how to use a new product you’re unfamiliar with on your first day on the job. You might make mistakes, or need to reach out to others to get help—which can be hard to do. But, this is how Cameron Montesano embraced his experience as a Web Developer Intern at Ping Identity, learning from these experiences building on his skillset to get familiar with PingOne Fraud and all its capabilities. 

Read about his experience here:

Prior to working at Ping Identity, I had a bit of experience in web development which was the route I took in learning how to code. However, I had little experience with the software and the stack that my team used, so there was a lot of room for growth. I discovered Ping through LinkedIn and as soon as I interviewed I knew that this would be a great opportunity and place to expand on my knowledge.

I’m a Web Developer Intern on the Digital Experience team. When I started at Ping, I came in with few expectations as this was my first web development experience in a professional environment, though I had some personal web development experience under my belt as a foundation. I came in with an open mind, eager to learn more about how development is done in the real world.

The primary task for the summer was to develop a tool that used PingOne Fraud to distinguish humans from bots and allow them to submit any form without the requirement of a CAPTCHA completion. Along the way as I reached significant milestones, I was assigned smaller tickets here and there. These included setting up translation rules for components using Adobe Experience Manager and Microsoft Translator and updating our component library to show where each component is used on our website, as well as fixing minor bugs on the Ping Identity website.

Over the course of the summer, I had some nerve-wracking moments. For example, on my third day, I accidentally deleted my virtual machine that was configured for me on my first day, and later on, I accidentally deleted the local branch with all of my work for my project. Luckily, both were a quick fix since I had the help of my mentor, Chris Brodski, to reconfigure a new VM and my project branch was safely backed up online. So, I lost only a small amount of work. From then on, I made sure to back up my work much more frequently.

I encountered some other challenges when it came to the project itself. PingOne Fraud was somewhat recently acquired so it hadn’t been used much in our other products before I started working with it and I did not have a lot to work off of.

But, with assistance from the Solutions Architect Manager, Jeremy Carrier, Senior Software Engineer, Gil Pratte, and my manager, Aaron Hughes, Senior Manager, Web Development, I was able to overcome roadblocks in the project. I was also consistently in contact with Aviad Maroodi, Product Manager, PingOne Fraud, who was extremely helpful when it came to better understanding the PingOne Fraud product.

The first realization of a milestone being hit was seeing a fraud evaluation for a specific user. That was well before PingOne Fraud was implemented in the website I was working on. The moment I saw a number representing a bot detection score, it was rewarding since it represented the first working version of my project. It was also early in the internship which was a sign that I was progressing at a great pace.

My biggest takeaway from this experience is to always keep an open mind. Especially with technologies or techniques you’re unfamiliar with, chances are you end up picking up small details and techniques here and there that can help to broaden your skill set and benefit you in the long run. I also learned to talk with as many people as possible within your field and seek out those that can help you to improve.

We’re always looking for talent at Ping! Interested in applying for Ping’s Intern program? We’d love to hear from you. See if we are hiring for interns near you, here!