An Insight into the Incredible Internship Experience at Intuit
The waves of ecstasy flow down my nerves as I reminisce the remarkable two-month journey at Intuit. The story commenced much before the 8 wonderful weeks of summer of 2018. It began from the month of August 2017, when students returned to university after a rejuvenating summer break to commence yet another semester. As the placement season was approaching closer, the enthusiastic voices of students revising core computing concepts like data structures, algorithms, operating systems, database management etc. could be heard around the university campus. Everyone eagerly looked forward to the first day of our placement drive when the Silicon Valley based Fintech giant headquartered in Mountain View, California, USA, one of the Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2017 (http://fortune.com/best-companies/2017/intuit/) and #1 in India’s best companies to work for 2017 (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)- Intuit (makers of QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mint) visited our campus. After a coding round, two technical interviews and a subsequent HR cum technical interview, I along with two of my colleagues from our university were elated at earning the ticket to the beginning of an incredible phase in our lives with the business and financial management software company- Intuit.
Like a caterpillar comes out of its shell to gain wings and transform into a beautiful butterfly, similarly we acquired our wings as we took a dive from the university academia into the corporate world. After completing 3 years of our 4-year engineering course at university, the flight I boarded from Delhi to Bangalore (Bengaluru) was yet another flight but the destination this time was going to be a memorable corporate experience to be cherished forever. On landing in the tech city of India- Bangalore, the city welcomed us with its pleasant weather which came as a big relief especially in the month of June.
Intuit, an idea which was conceived on a kitchen table when founder Scott Cook decided to replace the tedious traditional personal accounting practice involving pencil-and-paper with a competent financial and accounting software as he observed his wife’s struggle in managing the family cheque book, now caters to improving financial lives of over 46 million customers around the world while generating an annual revenue of more than US$ 5 billion as of May 2018. Founded by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in California, Intuit’s mission is to power prosperity around the world through its diverse range of flagship products and services including the accounting software- QuickBooks and tax preparation software package- TurboTax aimed at making it easier to manage small businesses and tax preparation and filing; Mint- an easy and intelligent way of managing personal finances; ProSeries and Lacerte which are leading tax preparation offerings for professional accountants. An empowering culture thrives at Intuit where we work on building technology that impacts financial prosperity of million of customers.
Quoting Brad Smith, Chairman and CEO of Intuit:
Our 8,000 employees are innovators and entrepreneurs that are inspired by the important work they do that is delighting customers and improving the financial lives of millions of people.
Embarking on a new journey on 04th June 2018, the splendid experience of my summer internship encompasses various intertwined stories of 8-weeks loaded with an amalgamation of great work, learning and fun. So, let your soul revel in the enthralling charm of the technological world as I gladly present below a brief account of the enriching experience I had during these two months of summer internship at Intuit IDC (India Development Center).
The Embarking Phase of the new journey: Diving into the Intuit-Life
Commencing the 2-month journey in Bangalore, Intuit provided the interns with a comfortable week’s stay in spacious and luxurious serviced-apartments. The dinner-time discussions at its restaurant led to the first bonding we had amongst the Intuit interns staying there. The first day of the internship at office kick-started with a power-packed orientation consisting of a well-defined schedule for various informative and ice-breaking sessions. Apart from the bag and T-shirt received at the time of selection through campus, Intuit pampered the interns with a lot more goodies on the orientation day itself. We all were also encouraged to jot down our fears, hopes and expectations in the beginning following which we were inspired to work upon overpowering our fears while striving to convert our dreams to reality during our future course of life. The orientation concluded with an overview of the various amenities available in the mesmerizing building no. 8 belonging to Intuit IDC. As we relished the spectacular view of RMZ Ecospace and explored the aesthetic modern infrastructure of entire building 8 campus of Intuit India apart from it also having some floors in two other buildings: 4a and 6a, we were totally convinced about it being regularly featured as one of the coolest offices in Bangalore (https://medium.com/@TedxBangalore/10-coolest-offices-in-bangalore-ccf3546a81e9). From the sumptuous complimentary food, the well-equipped gym, the massage chair to the swanky play arena consisting of foosball, table tennis, carrom, golf, snooker and much more, the office space truly radiated pleasant vibes for its employees to balance work and fun.
Working in a cordial atmosphere with highly talented and supportive team members was a pure delight. I could instantly develop a sense of belonging due to the welcoming and approachable environment at Intuit which nurtures growth and happiness. From having discussions with my team over lunch at office to participating with them in Engineering Days and to the warm farewell lunch by team on the last day of my internship, my 2-month journey with the team has been a great experience.
We Care and Give Back: Giving Back to the Society while promoting diversity and inclusion
By actively participating in major technical societies at university which strive to establish the peer mentorship series in campus with help from other students and faculty guidance, one of the major purposes in my life has been to use education as a powerful tool for the upliftment of the society and giving back to the society. This purpose of life truly got aligned with Intuit’s core values as on the second day of my internship itself, I was filled with a sense of satisfaction and gratitude when a session for ‘We Care and Give Back’ was conducted. We were taught sign language and the importance of designing websites in a way that it can be accessed with ease by everyone including the specially-abled. Further, we made tactile books and soft toys which could help in transforming the reading and playing experience of visually impaired. This session and the several activities being conducted at Intuit especially in the Week of Service truly embody some of the core values of Intuit- giving back to the society while promoting diversity and inclusion.
Learn Fast & Be Passionate: Journey with My Internship Project
Holding on to Intuit’s operating values of learning fast and being passionate, I was thrilled to work on a project involving great things to learn with amazing technologies. As an intern, I was assigned a buddy who was my mentor for the internship project. He introduced me to my team, my workspace and walked me through the problem statement of my project. Through my project, I got to explore the open-source, fault-tolerant, scalable and distributed publish-subscribe messaging system- Apache Kafka. It was an enriching journey with various stages from understanding the existing application, diving deep into the problem statement and its purpose, learning new technologies while overcoming exciting challenges, integrating my implementation with existing application’s code to finally accomplishing the software architecture proposed in my project and then ultimately presenting it for the final review. I feel thankful for the valuable guidance imparted by my manager, mentor, team members and everyone who provided feedback on my project. The interns later had a gallery walk in which we showcased our projects and discussed them with Intuit employees during lunch time. Working on the project was a complete journey which helped me in broadening my horizons, expanding my knowledge, exploring new technologies while getting the opportunity of a wonderful hands-on experience.
Customer Obsession, Design for Delight, Deliver Awesome and Win Together: Engineering Days & Interns Hackathon
The innovative culture and the constant motivation of designing for delight can be clearly seen embedded in the various hackathons and insightful expert talks conducted on latest technologies. A plethora of inspiring sessions were conducted which included product mashups of various Intuit products, expert talks on data science projects and use of latest technologies like Blockchain, Machine Learning, Kinesis, Kafka etc. at Intuit. In our QuickBooks team, we had a week-long hackathon popularly known as the “Engineering Days” where the employees brainstormed and worked upon adding new features in Intuit products which could delight customers. By participating in it with some of my team members- Sudhindra, Vidhya and Sumit, I got a deeper insight into the product’s functioning, learnt the skill to recognize customer pain points and gladly worked on a sub-part of the project with the team.
We also had an exclusive interns’ hackathon in which all the interns formed teams, penetrated deep into Intuit products and brainstormed on great ideas. I, along with two more interns- Vinayak and Siddharth, worked on recognizing pain points for customers and then used machine learning to build solutions to address those use cases. Intuit fosters a rewarding environment as well by appreciating good work through Spotlight rewards and recognition. We were elated as our team was declared 2nd runner-up prize winners in Interns’ hackathon and received Spotlight reward for upholding ‘Delivering Awesome’, one of the core values of Intuit. We express our heartfelt gratitude to the able guidance we received during the hackathon from our supportive mentors assigned to us- Vaishakh and Himani Garg. Participating in the Engineering Days and the 24-hour interns’ hackathon was another great hands-on experience apart from the main internship project.
Balancing Work, Fun and Learning: Interns’ Day Out & Various Learning Sessions
Amidst the substantial work and learning at office, we rejuvenated ourselves with the Interns Day Out arranged by Intuit’s Early Career Team at Discovery Village Resort in Bangalore. The multifarious team activities conducted at the resort were a fun way of socializing while it fostered teamwork by which we eventually got to know and understand each other better. Apart from team building games, we also participated in a gamut of adventurous activities like rope course challenge and Paintball. Then, we honed our creative and artistic skills through pottery. During the internship, we attended a plethora of learning and networking sessions. A special session was conducted where we got the opportunity to interact with the leaders at Intuit- Vijay Anand (Senior Vice President, Intuit Global Development Centers) and Sanket Atal (Vice President and Managing Director of Intuit IDC). We also had an inspiring networking session with Cynthia Srinivas- Director of Product Infrastructure and a discussion regarding women engineers and leaders. We were encouraged to take initiatives, enhance our leadership skills and remain motivated in our course of life. Further, a lunch with the leaders from diverse teams was held where we got to learn a lot from the inspiring experiences shared by them. Some of us also had the opportunity to interact with the talent marketing team which included James Thomas and Jennifer (Group Marketing Manager at Intuit San Diego, USA) where we understood the bridge connecting technology and management and further brainstormed on ideas to retain top talent at Intuit. Another great initiative was to connect with the Future Talent by conducting a Early Career Panel Discussion where we shared our internship experience with sophomore engineering students who visited the campus to get a sneak-peek into the corporate world and a first-hand experience of the Intuit Life.
Conclusion
Concluding this 8-week story, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my university- IGDTUW (Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women), my respected teachers and Intuit for providing us with this great opportunity.
I convey my special regards to the entire Early Career Team at Intuit (Naina Agarwal, Zubin Sethna, Blossom Pinto, Leena Hirekar and the whole team) for giving us these two marvelous months packed with various insightful events, hackathon, learning sessions, networking opportunities, interns’ outing and a warm farewell lunch at Novotel Bangalore. I feel extremely privileged that during my internship project, I was able to gather a lot of learning from the valuable guidance and feedback I received from my manager- Kiran Adlakha and my internship buddy/mentor- Sudeep Gangadharan. I truly appreciate the technological guidance provided by Amit Maurya and Reetesh Agrawal belonging to the team with which my project was closely related. I also take this opportunity to thank the leaders: Vijay Anand and Sanket Atal, my entire team of QuickBooks, our architect- Bibhakar Ranjan, all my well-wishers including my supportive parents, my seniors from the University and everyone with whom I was fortune to interact at Intuit, I thank you all for the tremendous support and inspiration I received from you all during my internship. The end of this internship journey marks the beginning of another phase of life with the pre-placement offer from Intuit IDC. Gladly looking forward for the commencement of yet another memorable and enriching journey with Intuit as a software engineer after completing the final year of my engineering.
