In college I had an internship at a company called Tekelec. Tekelec made appliances that were installed in data centers; the specific product I worked on was a monitoring appliance for their software. I worked on a team responsible for installing and upgrading that appliance. I liked that position because it reminded me of something I'd always noticed in video games.

When video games roll their credits there are many different roles listed: directors, programmers, testers, and sometimes a section labelled "Additional Programming By." I used to wonder why those people weren't just listed under "programmers." Aren't they part of the game development team?

"Additional Programming By" typically credits developers who worked on supporting parts of a game — things like the credits screens, menus, installers, or auxiliary tools — rather than the core gameplay systems. Those pieces are critical to the player's experience, even if they aren't part of the main game engine.

Often, companies assign those supporting tasks to junior staff, contractors, or interns because the work can be separated into discrete tasks. That doesn't make the work unimportant: a great intro sequence sets the tone for a game, and if the installer doesn't work, players may never reach the game at all.

So my internship at Tekelec felt very important. I was making sure the monitoring appliance could be installed and upgraded to new versions — the first necessary step for customers to use new features and benefit from each release.