Scott Banducci Talks About Building Web Connectors With DaVinci (& Zero Experience)

Imagine you’re thrown into a new internship with a respectable title–Software Engineer–only to show up to work your first day and be assigned a task that you’re completely unfamiliar with. This is what happened to our Software Engineer Intern here at Ping, Scott Banducci. Though Scott was given a task–building web connectors–with almost no experience, he surprised himself (and us!) with his ability to go above and beyond what was expected with the help of DaVinci.

Read about his experience:

Scott: After five years in Business Development at technology companies and two years back in university pursuing a second degree–this time in computer science–I found myself applying for internships a bit later than I anticipated. When I began my search for internships in Vancouver, Ping came up. What really sold me was the emphatically positive review of the intern experience I received when I sent an inquiry to a former intern I found on LinkedIn. 

Scott: My title here is Software Engineer Intern, and I’m on the Technology Alliance Partners team. From the ad copy and my interviews, I knew that I’d be working on a relatively new product called DaVinci. I knew that I’d be building ‘connectors’ and didn’t truly understand what those were, so I started doing API tutorials to learn some Javascript. I knew from my business background that if I focused on providing value, then good things would happen. That became my focus; my goal was to provide that value. I had some reservations going in as I felt like an amateur compared to the seasoned professionals that I’d be working alongside. 

Scott: I was tasked with developing connectors for DaVinci, and I had zero experience doing anything like this. I had written less than a few hundred lines of Javascript. I learned that a connector allows you to create streamlined integrations with any organization's services. These connectors are the key components of a flow, which is just a set of connectors that guides a user through a process; like signing up for a website or getting your account balance on your phone.

So, my job was to build these connectors so that other developers could use them in DaVinci’s no-code interface to save time and make it easier to build flows. Doing this meant that developers wouldn’t have to, and that was the type of value I wanted to provide.

Despite my doubts, I committed my first, fully-formed connector that integrates Shopify’s API into the DaVinci platform, five days after starting. Three days after that, I finished my second connector.

In a couple hours, the DaVinci 101 and 201 training videos hosted by Glen Morgan, introduced me to DaVinci and my first flow. I learned the basics myself and by following along with the directions in the video, I was able to build a simple flow in DaVinci, all while still learning what a “flow” actually did. 

After completing DaVinci 101 and 201, I moved on to 202, which dove deeper into the more powerful DaVinci features like triggers, error-handling, and sub-flows.

When I felt confident I could continue my DaVinci learning, I moved on to Davinci’s 301 training video. There, I was introduced to the DaVinci Connector Wizard, otherwise known as salvation in a widget.  

This is what it’s like using the wizard:

The connector was then finished.

How did I achieve this modest accomplishment? Well, with the exception of having a great mentor in Peter Holko, the credit lies overwhelmingly with the DaVinci platform, training material, and DaVinci Connector Wizard tool.

I wasn’t sure I even wrote a single line of my own code. The wizard was able to do everything for me. It generated some key files, then all I had to do was configure functions and test. I couldn’t believe I was finished when my first tests were passing. 

Still, I was left with one lingering question: “That was so easy, how could it have taken me so long!?”. Well, three days later, I finished my second connector that had twice the amount of capabilities as the first. Even though this was twice as much work, I was able to finish in half the time. 

DaVinci just makes my job easy…

DaVinci helps not only our interns but also our customers to design and optimize seamless and secure user experiences. Learn more about DaVinci and what our no-code identity orchestration tool can do for your enterprise. 

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!