Internship Report > Self-Assessment

Self-Assessment

During my internship at Amazon Web Services Vietnam as part of the First Cloud AI Journey 2026 program (05/01/2026 – 18/04/2026), I had the opportunity to apply and significantly deepen my understanding of cloud-native development in a real project context.

As Team Lead of Team TheBois, I led the design and end-to-end implementation of GuardScript — a serverless script distribution platform with loader-based access control deployed on AWS. This involved hands-on work across architecture design, backend development (Node.js Lambda), infrastructure as code (AWS SAM / CloudFormation), security implementation (HMAC, ECDH, AES-GCM), and frontend integration.

Throughout the program I consistently pushed myself beyond comfort, tackling challenges in cryptographic protocol design, DynamoDB multi-table modeling, CloudFront behavior configuration, and real-time WebSocket integration — areas that were largely new to me at the outset.

Self-Evaluation Table

No.	Criteria	Description	Good	Fair	Average
1	Professional knowledge & skills	Applying AWS services, Node.js, security algorithms, IaC in a real project	✅	☐	☐
2	Ability to learn	Absorbing new services and concepts (X25519 ECDH, SAM, CloudFront behaviors) quickly	✅	☐	☐
3	Proactiveness	Self-directed research, proposing architecture decisions, raising blockers early	✅	☐	☐
4	Sense of responsibility	Delivering sprint tasks on time, owning design decisions as Team Lead	✅	☐	☐
5	Discipline	Adhering to sprint schedules and team commitments	☐	✅	☐
6	Progressive mindset	Actively seeking feedback on architecture and security design	✅	☐	☐
7	Communication	Writing documentation, presenting technical decisions clearly to the team	☐	✅	☐
8	Teamwork	Coordinating task distribution across 6 team members, unblocking teammates	✅	☐	☐
9	Professional conduct	Maintaining respectful, constructive collaboration throughout the program	✅	☐	☐
10	Problem-solving skills	Diagnosing system issues, iterating on security protocol design	☐	✅	☐
11	Contribution to project/team	Core architect and primary implementer of GuardScript	✅	☐	☐
12	Overall	Delivered a complete, production-grade serverless platform within the internship period	✅	☐	☐

Areas for Improvement

Discipline & time management — Sprint deadlines were met, but task estimation accuracy and buffer planning need improvement for larger-scale work.
Technical communication — I can explain architecture well one-on-one but need to improve at writing concise, audience-appropriate summaries for non-technical stakeholders.
Delegation — As Team Lead, I tended to take on too many implementation tasks myself rather than distributing more evenly across the team.
Testing discipline — More emphasis on automated testing (unit, integration) from the start of development would have caught several edge cases earlier.

Key Takeaways

Building a production-quality serverless system requires careful attention to IAM scoping, TTL-based cleanup, and security at every layer.
AWS SAM + CloudFormation significantly reduces deployment complexity but requires a thorough understanding of resource dependencies.
Real-time features (WebSocket API) add meaningful user experience value but introduce connection-state management complexity.
The FCJ program provided an environment where I could take genuine technical ownership — a rare opportunity that accelerated my growth considerably.