All of the software engineering students out there are crazy about internships/jobs at top tech giants — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Have you ever considered interning at a startup? If not, then read on. This post might change your perspective about startups.I interned at Rubrik. Rubrik is a backup and storage startup based in Palo Alto in California, USA. They are a team of about 50 engineers who are top notch in their respective fields. The engineers at Rubrik are super talented and they have experience of building the real tech.
I interned at Rubrik. Rubrik is a backup and storage startup based in Palo Alto in California, USA. They are a team of about 50 engineers who are top notch in their respective fields. The engineers at Rubrik are super talented and they have experience of building the real tech.I will list out the things that I really liked about Rubrik:
I will list out the things that I really liked about Rubrik:
- Freedom to choose project: I was initially given an option to choose from 1 of the 2 suggested projects. I didn’t quite like both of them and so, the team members helped me to come up with an altogether new project and I really liked it.
- Small team: When the team is small, your presence matters. I was an intern but my manager and I were really the only 2 people who knew about CockroachDB (the database on which I was working). This is super cool. You definitely won’t get this level of ‘monopoly’ in a big tech giant.
- Excellent learning experience: At startups you won’t work on pre-built things. You will play an integral role in building things!
- Learning things you don’t know: At Rubrik, there is a lot of emphasis on code quality. My mentor used to point out things as minute as a stray blank space. I really never knew that in the industry they maintain such high code quality.
- Your work matters: At the end of my internship, I gave a tech talk on what I did during my intern and I was happy to see that most of the engineering team members attended the talk. It was encouraging to know that people are interested in what I am doing.
- Transparency: You are free to attend any ongoing meeting. Everyone pretty much knows about everything and nothing is hidden from anyone.
- Learning beyond tech: Since the team is small, you can interact with other teams like product managers, marketing and sales, which I believe is a great experience.
- High chances of a pre-placement offer: Interns at startups have high chances of a pre-placement offer because they played a key role in the early stage of the company.
- Interaction with the startup leaders: I remember our CEO Mr. Bipul Sinha addressed us in one of the happy hours and it was so motivating to listen to him and interact with him.
- Self-confidence: Startup interviews are hard to crack. Also, their hiring criteria is rigid because a bad hire at initial stage might be disastrous. So, cracking the interview will give you confidence.
Working at Rubrik gave me a lot of confidence. I wrote thousands of lines of C++ code along with some python code. I got an experience of how a team works in coordination to build and maintain a product. It was an enriching experience and I am happy to mention that I have got a pre-placement offer from Rubrik 🙂
Learn more about Rubrik’s Engineering team, and how the engineers built Rubrik:
Reposted from former intern Aman Goel’s blog on Medium