Tapad’s Engineering Internship 2020: Remote Edition
How we made our internship program remote-friendly
Each year, Tapad is delighted to welcome classes of new interns over the summer. Last week, we wrapped up our first remote Engineering Internship program, which, as 2020 would have it, was one of a kind!
Traditionally, the summer internship program has been enriching for the organization from a Talent Acquisition and Development standpoint. Year after year, the internship program has resulted in adding valuable contributors and leaders for the organization.
New Way of Work
Tapad went remote March 12th, 2020, but at that time, we were expecting to return to the office after two weeks. After a month in quarantine, we slowly realized we might be working remotely throughout the summer. With less than 6 weeks until the internship, we needed to think quickly and adapt. We were forced to change our traditional format and create a new curriculum, which would still add value for the incoming interns.
With little time to prepare, the Talent and Engineering teams joined forces to create a best-in-class experience. Our goal was to allow the interns to contribute to product improvements and develop new products and features while getting a taste of our culture.
Over time, we have organically created a transparency and accountability culture, which minimizes bureaucracy and maximizes development, autonomy, and agile SDLC. In a remote setting, interns didn’t have the same daily face-time with colleagues, peers, and mentors as they would have in an office environment. That surely was the most challenging part of preparing an equally engaging and personable experience! We quickly opted for transparency and let our class know that this year will be a beta version of our remote internship. We wanted to make it a joint effort involving a mix of initiative testing, continuous feedback, adjustments, and increased communication.
Tradition Continues
Despite multiple challenges faced by most companies this year, we were thrilled to continue the tradition and welcomed three software engineering interns for the Summer 2020 program.
This year, the benefit of physical proximity was non-existent. We needed to practice overcommunication to make sure our interns feel connected and engaged, creating a real sense of belonging. Consistently soliciting feedback, assessing interest, and providing company-wide exposure through multiple virtual initiatives helped break the virtual ice and establishing rapport. Over the ten weeks program, some of these initiatives include:
- An in-depth departmental onboarding schedule
- Executive Lunch Series — Game them the opportunity to meet with our
- Technical Domain Expert Series
- Games Nights
- Happy Hours
- An exclusive “Interns of Tapad” channel consisting of former interns converted into full-time engineers sharing tips on how to make the experience a success story
Formalizing check-in frequency was another way to facilitate communication and the collaboration between project owners, mentors, and interns. It ensured that proper guidance in the project execution was provided and allowed us to simulate an in-person evaluation. This year, we replaced the typical “tap on the shoulder” or “quick regroup” in meeting rooms with prescheduled one on ones, constant communication via Slack, and took advantage of collaborative platforms like Google Suite. All in all, it worked!
The interns made significant contributions to our product and features through their dedicated project. They did so well that the project was deployed 2 weeks earlier than expected (the bar was high so trust us… it’s impressive!). Because they finished early, the interns were given another opportunity to make an additional contribution before the program wrapped.
Bonus Project
After completing their main project two weeks early, we quickly put together what I like to call the Project Match-Making initiative. The goal was to allow the interns to experience a real-life, short-term project, pitched to them by our internal Technical Domain Experts. This initiative allowed them to select a project based on their desires and dive deeper into the technical domain, and collaborate with other teams at Tapad. They couldn’t be happier!
That’s a wrap!
This year, among other challenges, the most prominent task was to create an effective remote internship program that could adequately substitute for in-person projects, learning, networking, and socialization. To overcome these challenges, we emphasized a few fundamental principles when designing our first remote internship program. Hopefully, our ultimate goal of providing a real-life experience that will help shape the future of our interns’ career aspirations was achieved.
