I did my summer internship at Intuit. Yes! yes! yes ! Intuit which has been ranked No 1 in the “India’s Best Companies to Work For — 2020”.
As they say, you always remember your first love. It is very close to your heart. So is this internship!
This internship is very close to my heart as the experience that I gained from it is outstanding. I was elated and ecstatic on being selected for this Internship. This experience was very memorable for so many reasons.
Reunited with a high school friend
The biggest reason is that I was reunited to my best friend Shejal. We used to solve doubts, spent time together and she was the only friend who didn’t let me think about my family whenever I felt alone studying miles away form them. So one day when we were added to the same group of fellow interns, we were both shocked, excited and happy altogether.
When we were studying at same coaching center and in the same batch we always wonder what if we end up in same college, what if we end up in same company. What are the odds to happen this. But intuit made it all happen.
“Now we were in the same company and even in the same team. Intuit is the hero of our story who just reunited the two close friends after a long time.”
Yeah! This internship experience will always have some space in my heart and deep down I will be grateful to Intuit for this.
Intuit : My knight in shining armor
After being assigned the same team, I was very excited for my on boarding and I cannot be more excited to go to Bangalore, as I have heard about its food, night life and what not. But then this 2020 happens and the deadliest virus hit on the world and this time it was declared pandemic.
Even in the midst of this pandemic, Intuit didn’t back out and just like a champ it had plans for us. At first, all the interns were scared that we might not have internship this year as the whole world was in lock down and in-office internship was impossible. But thanks to technology this was converted into virtual internship. We were among the first batch of interns at Intuit in history whose internship will be completely virtual.
On-Boarding
It was the day I was eagerly waiting for, 4 May 2020. This is when we got on-board and started off with our journey . I thought, as it was virtual , we might just get acquainted with team and will be assigned our projects.
The on-boarding process was surprisingly awesome. This virtual orientation of ours was exceptionally smooth and interesting, for the whole time I just forgot that this was for our internship. It was planned by our HR, Rachel, Gokul and Saumya, Priyanka and the whole Intuit team with great care and perseverance. It started with a icebreaker in which we played games and till then we’re all comfortable with each other. I was very nervous in the beginning as I am kind of an introvert person and cannot connect with people easily. After the icebreaker we had some session about Intuit then we have our introduction and get acquainted with each other. We were given the overview of our internship and and we get to know more about Intuit.
Then we’re break out in several rooms and were introduced with the team. Since I already knew my fellow team mate, I was somewhat less nervous. My manager and my buddy then joined. Intuit has a great way of comforting the newly joined employees. All the new ones are assigned a buddy which is literally our buddy and help us with every small new thing and getting familiar with the environment. Also a mentor who guide us with our internship project and coach us. In the first meeting my manager Preethi joined along with my buddy Vinutha. Me and Shejal were not able to open up but then Preethi initiated and told us about the project and how we will be working. They both shared their experience and told us about Intuit’s open culture and its flat organizational structure. You can reach out to anyone anytime and they will be more than happy to help. Everyone at Intuit is amiable and affectionate.
Then we had IT session in which VPN setup was done and we were given our Corp Credentials . Although it was all virtual, but not at a single moment of time I thought that I am being ignored or not getting enough help. Everything was extremely effortless.
Onwards
The next day we were invited for the stand-up. Every team organizes a daily stand-up in which everyone has to give their updates, what they have achieved and what will be working. Our manager gives her update and guide everyone to achieve their goals.
Then Vinutha, Nimisha and Shejal, we all had a meeting in which we were told us about the complete project and we get familiar with the requirements.
In the first month starting from scratch we designed the database, finalized the tech stack and created wireframes and API design. As we were new , we faced many challenges and also our design was not that good enough at first attempt.
We used to setup meetings with my teammates and we would end up brainstorming for hours! All such discussions were really enriching and gave me new perspectives on how to tackle challenges. They guide us through the steps, make the necessary changes, and at last our design was much far away from the initial design.
Our project was divided into two parts and I handled the back-end part and my mentor FarnadisVegas helped me with each and every single doubt I had. It wouldn’t be possible to complete the project without his great insights. The knowledge and wisdom he has imparted upon me has been a great help and support throughout. Also me and Shejal both worked on front-end part and used to Zoom a lot.
Funday Friday
At every Friday, Intuit planned many fun activities as well as informational and interactive sessions for us. As the interns, we were taught about the security, major goals and roles at Intuit, some interactive sessions with 6 month interns and their projects and many more.
I used to wait for Friday and for the new and creative activities that were planned for us. From every event we learned something but I still remember one event “We Care Give Back” in which we got to know about the societies and communities that Intuit support. There is a society “Concern India Foundation” which supports and sponsor girl education and help them to shape their life. I was so amazed by that initiative and fortunately they gave us the opportunity to help them as they organized the virtual volunteering activities. As this was the time of Covid 19, schools and educational institutions were shut down and our soldiers and doctors were out saving our lives, we did our bit by making people aware using virtual posters , recording stories and poems for children and made cards to show our gratitude towards the front-line fighters. I recorded the story “Ginger the Giraffe” for children which addressed the great moral.
There was another interactive session that taught me a lot about work ethics and how to handle different situations at work.
There were many events like “Intern Talent Show” in which many interns displayed their outstanding talents, “All About Intuit ” facilitated by Mohan in which we learnt about various strategies opted by Intuit which make Intuit successful like “Follow Me Home”, Intuit’s mission, values and many more.
One on one with manager
We had monthly one on one with manager but as we had less time we made that biweekly. She was very supportive and helpful. Not only she guided me with the projects but also gave me a different perspective. She coached me about feminism and inclusion. While coding for user privileges I had given higher roles for male engineers and admin roles for women. She coached me on my unconscious bias and helped me in understanding equal opportunities. Not only I was impressed, but I was also empowered. She always supported me and motivated me to be better every time. Once I was feeling very low after one presentation and we were not that happy. But she praised me about my performance and gave the honest feedback which really meant a lot to me.
Takeaways from internship
Along with developing my technical skills, I acquainted myself with a lot in various ways.
Code review is a must. In my opinion, out of all agile practices, having a good development pipeline benefits the most. I count lucky myself to be in the Desktop team having such great mentors who encouraged me throughout.
Communication is essential. I saw myself grow from understanding almost nothing in the first couple of meetings to contributing something significant towards the end.
Documentation is a must. The most important thing which I have learnt so far is that the design diagrams, class and sequence diagrams are very necessary for development to be successful. We did that! In the beginning I thought that we should not spent much time on documentation and just skip to the implementation. But in no time I was proven wrong. At every point of documenting the requirements, I got more insights of the project which really helped me in the implementation.
Challenges I Faced
The major challenge I faced was that since it was virtual internship , it took time for us to be familiar with Intuit’s environment as for every small thing we had to schedule a Zoom and had to block the other persons calendar accordingly. I think if we were present at office then we would have completed our project soon and might be able to work on the extra features.
All said, It was a pleasure to work alongside the best people in their domains, be it engineering, creative or BizOps. It left me with a mindset to always strive to improve my skills and raise the bar everyday. I would like to extend my gratitude towards my manager Preethi and my mentors Farnadis, Vinutha, Nimisha, Vinay and the whole team and I hope to remain in touch with the team.
I have so many things to share and have collected so many memories in very short period of time. But it would be a very big article so I rest my case here on a happy note :)
“I gained a new sense of professionalism and a comprehensible view of what it meant to be in the professional world. I would advise everyone to take the opportunity and do an internship in their respective field.”
