So I’m not really sure how to start this off since there’s a lot of different categories which I’d like to write about. So I’ll just start off general and then we will see where it goes. I was a software engineering intern on the data engineering and visualization team. On the backend side of my team, there were 5 of us, but the team in total was around 10. Everything at Illumio is very Marvel-based, so our team was the Avenger team. All of the rooms are also named after superheros, which was super cool.
One of the coolest parts of the intern program was that we had scheduled lunches with the whole executive board. So we met with the CEO, CTO, VP of Engineering, etc. and got to ask them questions and talk about their experience. I really liked it when I ask a question that I wasn’t really sure what I wanted out of it, and then they told me, “I know you asked this, but I think what you wanted to ask was this. And that is a much better question.”, and then answered it. It’s great that through all of their experience, they know what we wanted to ask, and had great answers and knowledge to share. There is something that’s calming and informative with just talking with educated, experienced people and learning from them. I mean, our VP of engineering grew VMware from 60 people to 17,000 people. And we got to have lunch with him and see him everyday and talk to him anytime. It’s great.
After a couple of these Lunch with Execs, I decided that we should also start trying to have lunches with other senior engineers and members at the company. And I approached several of the engineers and got them to have lunch with us and they were more than excited to talk to us. It was really a great experience in my life when I decided to take initiative to ask these extremely busy and important people to take the time out of their life to spend with me, and it turns out they were more than happy to share their experiences. The director of UX Design even brought books to share with us! One of the big takeaways from my experience from Illumio is that if you want something, you have to ask for it. Be brave and take initiative.
So what about the work I did? All of us engineering interns worked on real features. And that was the coolest thing. That the work we did mattered. We worked on things that Illumio's clients wanted and there was real use cases for. And when we finished our internship, we had to present our project to the engineering divison, including the CTO and VP of engineering as well as many other important senior engineers. That's how I know the work I did there mattered. I worked on a new feature for the Illumination map (which I can't describe in depth), and I learned that it’s very hard to implement new features, even if they sound trivial. Computer science is just for loops and if statements. But integrating code to work the way you want it to work, and then dealing with scalability in an existing product is hard stuff. It was frustrating sometimes, but I learned a lot technically and got a lot of exposure to different parts of the stack.
I think there’s this big misconception that what you learn in college doesn’t apply to industry. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t know how I could work at Illumio without taking computer security and knowing some knowledge about DNS resolvers and the theory with how things work. Industry work is different from what we do in school, but it definitely helped doing well in my courses and understanding the theory behind it. I don’t think you can just be a distributed systems engineer without knowledge of distributed systems and just knowing Python. Sure, you can learn on the job, but then you waste a lot of time learning about the baseline knowledge that everyone else already has. I agree that some things you learn in college don’t necessarily apply to industry, but that’s because it’s going deeper into those certain fields, and you are working in a different specific field. But having a general knowledge of a lot of computer science things will help.
I was also very impressed with Illumio's documentation. Not just documentation on the code for engineers or for the clients on how to use the product, but documentation on the internal system. There were very clear systems in place for how engineering should run, what the process for new features should be, what they look for in interns and engineers as well as the hiring process, what goals the company had. It's not a mistake that a company becomes successful. Things need to be well defined so that when people have questions, there are answers. Clear answers.
There were a lot of perks of being at Illumio (besides all of that standard perks of tech companies, i.e. free food, drinks, rec rooms, Happy Hour, etc.). By the way, I hate it when I talk to people about their companies they work at to find more, and one of their biggest selling points is the amenities. Well, not hate it, but I don’t like it. Are you working there because you get fed? What about the work you do there? What about the mission? The culture? The people?
Anyways, the best perk must have been being a part of the a16z network. Since Illumio is funded by a16z, we got invited to their events. Did I know who Ben Horowitz was before Illumio? Definitely not. But we got to go to Andreesen-Horowitz headquarters and talk with him and have him answer our questions. There was also a portfolio showcase where we got to see some of their companies (here’s the link of my blog post!). We also got to see Frank Chen (head of the a16z Deal team) talk about autonomous driving cars and talk to him personally as well about his advice. Being a part of the a16z talent network has also opened up many opportunities even after I left Illumio. Talking Horowitz and Frank Chen was just …inspiring. And there were so little people (around 30) who showed up to see Frank Chen, which is where I also met Mariel, the talent recruiter for UC Berkeley. That’s another big thing I learned: just show up. Show up to things and expose yourself. You can’t expect things to show up to you. You have to show up.
I also became open to working at cool awesome startups. Before, I thought I just wanted to end up at Google or Facebook. Like I said in previous posts, there’s nothing wrong with working at the Big 4. They are awesome companies. But now, there are other companies that I would want to work at now, which is really cool because it opens up more things for me to explore.
Last but not least, I met amazing people and made amazing friends. I became extremely close with Rubinder, Ofek, Shraddha, Ananth, and Aryik. We didn’t just spend time together at work, but also went on hikes and kayaking on the weekend and had a lot of fun. Illumio put a lot of effort into the culture fit for the interns, because all of us (not just the ones I mentioned) got along really well and fit together great. I remember when we had our hackathon, all of us were just at the company after everybody else left and we just played foosball and played hangman and other nonsense like that. I remember all of my awesome morning car rides with Ofek. I remember being at Shraddha’s house every weekend with Ananth. I remember a lot of good memories.
I was very surprised how close I came with them. I think in college, I have good friends, but I don’t have any friends that I would consider very close. My closest friends are probably from high school. So to become this close with new people who I’ve only known for three months was very surprising and enjoyable. It’s something I’ve really missed in my college life, but it made me realize that I do want to become closer with my current friends. I learned so much from my intern friends, and I miss them dearly.
Anyways, if you read this far, I appreciate it. Illumio was one of the best summers of my life. I learned a lot technically, did meaningful work, made amazing friends, met leaders in the industry, and had a lot of cool experiences. What more can you ask for?