Internships have become an integral part of our modern education system. Originating from the practice of apprenticeships centuries ago where the trainee lived with a master to learn the trade, and later evolving into vocational training geared towards factory skills, the concept intern concept started with medical students in the early twentieth century.

Today, internships are well-defined programs to help students in all fields to transition from academia to industry. According to estimates, there are 300k interns per years in the US, with 20–40k in Washington DC alone. While the students build their resume, the employers get entry level skills at much lower cost, with estimates indicating that companies save $2 billion dollars per year globally via internships.

At SmartApps, internships are an integral part of our culture. Our core values when designing an internship program are as follows:

• Paid — Even though estimates suggest that 40% of the interns are unpaid, we strongly believe that interns must be compensated for their time and effort. The budgets may vary but the intent must be there.
• Project — Intern projects must be well defined and thought through before the intern(s) arrive. This is a critical to make the program worth anyone’s time and to set the intern up for success.
• Outcomes — Project must have well-defined outcomes that are aligned with the core business and mission. This includes having a clear understanding of future ownership and adoption of the work done.
• Experience — The program must be geared towards generating energy, fostering novel ideas, validating possibilities, and inspiring new directions. There must be something for everyone.
• Mentorship — The everyday experience of an intern is as important as the overall goal. Therefore, it is crucial to pair them up with the right partners who are committed to investing time and resources.
• Community — Internship programs are a great way to serve the community, welcoming new members to the workforce and staying connected with them even after the program ends.

We are excited to welcome two incredible interns at SmartApps this year. Here is a short interview with them as they are getting started.

Kanupriya Raheja, Columbia University

Tell us about yourself I am Kanu, I am pursuing my master’s in computer science at Columbia University. I enjoy a variety of things from solving problems to going on a walk. I also have been doing Sudoku every day since I was a kid.

What are your goals for the internship? My goal for this internship is to learn and get better at AI by working hands-on practical problems.

What other places did you consider?
I considered an internship at a security firm in New York but felt the internship at SmartApps suited my interest better.

Why did you choose SmartApps?
During my interview process when I learned more about the company and its product, I found it extremely interesting. It seemed like a place where I could learn and grow through challenging projects and mentorship. Additionally, SmartApps’ utilization of cutting-edge technologies further solidified my interest in being part of their team.

Tell us about your project at SmartApps
My project at SmartApps is to learn the behavior of data models in large databases. The main objective is to identify changes in the data model within various parameters and keep customers informed about it. Additionally, I will also be working on better management and analysis of log data and models over it.

How has the early experience been so far?
My experience so far has been great. We took an iterative approach in my project. This was very helpful in getting started, I have been able to get the first version of my data model smarts to production. I also started working on the log manager and am currently testing it on our own logs at SmartApps.

What are you looking forward to?
I am eagerly looking forward to customers trying out our data model smarts on their workloads and providing us their feedback. Additionally, I am excited to enhance and refine the feature based on the inputs we receive and our own testing. Lastly, I am looking forward to a potential trip to Mount Rainier!

Any plans for the rest of your stay in Seattle?
I don’t have any specific plans, but I am excited to relish all the nature and sunshine that Seattle has to offer. I am looking forward to visiting different parks, going on short hikes, and going kayaking.

Sathwik Reddy Madhula, University of California San Diego

Tell us about yourself I am interested in NLP and computer engineering. My interests evolved from signal and systems to deep learning. Clearly, I have been taking a curve path rather a direct one.

What are your goals for the internship? Real exposure to working in a team and seeing my work deployed in real world. Getting my work help other people is the most enjoyable part.

What other places did you consider?
I applied to a lot of industry places and got into interview rounds of several of them.

Why did you choose SmartApps?
I found the problem they solve very interesting, and the specific work involves a good feature. I also anticipated a lot of guidance from an experienced team since it was small. Interning at a big company may not have gotten my work deployed or seen by the real user, while at SmartApps I could see it deployed fast and for the real world.

Tell us about your project at SmartApps
My project involves improving the search-ability of the data models and training in-house language models for featurization.

How has the early experience been so far?
It’s been good, and I have learned a lot. Whatever I did in academics, I saw them in parts, but here I combine it all together. I have studied databases but never used it in an application; seeing data and AI coming together in an end-to-end application is nice.

What are you looking forward to?
I am looking forward to deploying my feature to AWS using Sagemaker, improving the generation tasks further, running detailed evaluation on them, and working through the corner cases.

Any plans for the rest of your stay in Seattle?
I am hoping to tour the Mount Rainier and the Space Needle. Also, looking to explore more restaurants in Seattle.