What do Leonardo DaVinci, Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Mindy Kaling and Mary Barra have in common?
They all started out as apprentices and interns.
Though the first widespread system of apprenticeship began in the late Middle Ages — when master craftsmen of the European guild system provided food, lodging and formal training in exchange for work — today’s internships and apprenticeships are equally important and can act as springboards for career development and individual mastery.
According to Fast Company, there are 300,000 interns in America each year, and the NACE reports that 70 percent of organizations offer full-time employment to their interns. Just as important is the shift in mindset: A 2018 study published in the quarterly journal, CBE: Life Sciences Education, revealed that STEM internships significantly increased personal confidence about career goals and future employment.
Built In NYC checked in with Codecademy and Resident to hear about how these forward-thinking tech companies have provided exciting programs for those just starting out in the industry — and where those apprentices and interns have gone from here.
Cass Spain is a software engineer at Codecademy, an online learning platform featuring hands-on coding classes in 12 different programming languages. Spain’s experience with Codecademy’s apprenticeship program not only led to full-time employment but also increased their skills, career direction and confidence.
Tell us a bit about the internship program you’re participating in or participated in. What made you decide this was the right place to do your internship?
What Codecademy’s apprenticeship program does best is create a clear roadmap to success for new tech talent through learning, mentorship and measurable goals. This not only gave me a clear idea of what I needed to work on but also informed my manager and mentor on where I might need more support. It also reassured me when imposter syndrome crept in.
From the get-go, interviewing at Codecademy was different from anywhere else I applied. I didn’t need to study the mission or product beforehand — as a learner myself, Codecademy was my gateway into the world of software engineering. I was, and remain, genuinely passionate about democratizing tech and changing other people’s lives the same way mine has been changed.
The interview process was by far the best I had gone through. It was designed around understanding and evaluating how I solved engineering problems without the “gotcha!” aspect of other interviews. When I got stuck during my technical interview, my interviewee coached me through the specific issue instead of watching me crash and burn. At that moment, I realized that Codecademy’s company culture reflected the spirit of learning that I loved so much from the product.
I was, and remain, genuinely passionate about democratizing tech and changing other people’s lives — the same way mine has been changed.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on in your role as an intern? What skills did that project help you develop?
The projects I’m most proud of from my time as an apprentice include creating our new Learning Environment (LE) header and being a part of planning our Winter Hackathon!
Working with my team to create the new LE interface helped me further develop the hard skills that come with software engineering. I honed my technical skills by creating a proposal for restructuring this component and refactored legacy code to clean up technical debt. Through this, I got better at writing readable and more performant code — a necessary skill when building things worked on by a large engineering team and used daily by our learners.
I also got the opportunity to work on our Winter Hackathon. This helped me advance the less-lauded but super important soft skills that come with being a software engineer. I learned how to communicate across an entire organization to support and advocate for our awesome tech community. It was great getting to put together an event that not only helped us blow off steam as a team but also fostered some truly inspired projects that are live on Codecademy today.
How has your internship helped you grow professionally, and how will you carry the lessons you’ve learned forward into your career?
I was given the freedom to work on the things I was interested in and was empowered to take on projects that were slightly beyond my skill set. I was able to accomplish those projects with the support of an awesome mentor and the team backing me up. Codecademy recognized my passions and offered me a position on the web platform team — a position that built directly off of the work I had done and the skills I had gained during my time as an apprentice.
In addition to the many technical skills I am already using and building on in my career, I will carry the lessons I learned about taking on projects I might not think I’m able to handle. Codecademy’s culture stresses the importance of improving relentlessly and the impact a strong tech community can have on an organization — which I will continue to carry on in my career.
At Resident, a house of direct-to-consumer brands in the home goods space, Influencer Marketing Intern Ishani Shreshtha had an exciting and illuminating internship experience that led directly to permanent employment and career direction.
Tell us a bit about the internship program you’re participating in or participated in. What made you decide this was the right place to do your internship?
I knew that this internship would be an opportunity that would prepare me for the future by encouraging me to step outside of my comfort zone. It exposed me to what my future career consists of in the world of business and marketing and has enabled me to develop skills in these fields. With all the marketing-related opportunities I have taken, I am confident that this is the career path I want to take.
With that in mind, I knew that any experience I got through this internship would be very rewarding. I immediately knew Resident was the right place because the team was so welcoming. I was ready to take advantage of all the opportunities that I received through this internship because I knew the outcome would be truly rewarding through the experience I gained and the people I worked with. I have learned directly from experts and was given the chance to put my knowledge and skills into practice.
I immediately knew Resident was the right place because the team was so welcoming.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on in your role as an intern? What skills did that project help you develop?
One of the coolest projects I worked on during my time as an intern at Resident was being given full reign on running an email marketing and social media campaign for our Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. I started working on the campaign beginning with a campaign idea, recruiting social media influencers, confirming they signed their online contracts and working with my colleagues and shipping to get products out. I developed creative briefs for each campaign and combined my skills of digital media design with concisely communicating what deliverables we needed from the influencers. I previously worked as a graphic designer for my university’s library, so I was able to showcase the skills I gained from that position and apply them to this internship. Through these projects, I became comfortable with new tasks and managed ambiguity without supervision quickly.
How has your internship helped you grow professionally, and how will you carry the lessons you’ve learned forward into your career?
Interning at Resident Home has strengthened my skills in creative design, social media skills and effective communication with partners. What was originally a three-month internship was extended to a nine-month internship and throughout these nine months, I have run social media campaigns from the beginning to the end, tracked deliverables, and have truly enhanced my communication and professionalism skills.
Additionally, I had an amazing mentor who guided me during my internship. This enabled me to directly learn from someone within the marketing field and gain first-hand experience that I can apply to my future. I started this internship off by working on Google Sheets and manually putting in all the necessary info for every campaign and every influencer into different sheets. Now, we use an online marketing platform that makes this process run much more efficiently. However, I am still very grateful to have learned how to run these campaigns through the back end since now I can utilize this skill in the future. I will be graduating college a year early, in June 2021, and have accepted a full-time position at Resident Home working within influencer marketing.
