Why you shouldn't intern at Instamojo

Nine reasons why interning at Instamojo isn't such a great idea. 

I interned at Instamojo in the summers of 2014 as an User Experience Designer. This post is for the hapless people who are considering interning/working at Instamojo. Consider this a fair warning, a cautionary message, a mindful afterthought.

Too Awesome People

You will be forced to work with many awesome people like @hiway, @kingsidharth, @sengupta, @sampad, @gehani, @nehajha05, @abhay_pruthi, @ruchir_89, @saiprasadch. All of them are sheer geniuses in their fields. The work they've done and the work they do will drive you to the feeling of lack of self-worth, doubt and uncertainty. Their awesomeness will continually make you feel bad about yourself. If you are a beginner, it will hit you hard. Really hard.

Too much Geek Humor

You will be bombarded with jokes you won’t get. There will be hundreds of obscure references and contexts buried underneath even the most innocuous one-liners. You will be forced to laugh at seemingly meaningless jokes and forced to watch videos bursting with nerdy humor on YouTube. Not to mention, the constant exchange of Reddit and 4chan links which is bound to affect your brain.
Though, after a while it gets really simple:
1) If anything under the sun does not work as planned/intended (be it a TV remote, or a nuclear submarine) insert a JavaScript reference.
2) Replace commonly used English words with similar sounding programming lingo. Did you git it?

Overtly flexible working hours

The working hours at Instamojo are flexible. Too flexible. Let me tell you this: You are bound to grab more eyeballs if you come in at work on time than if you come in two hours later. Here you are judged by the amount of work you actually do, which means that the only way to appear hard-working is by working hard. Also, the office environment is way too comforting. There will be a bean bag patiently conspiring in one corner for you to be zoned out and take a nap.

Hardcore Fire-fighting

A lot of work done at Instamojo, be it design, engineering, etc. involves dealing with daily on-the-go problems. There are challenging problems with impossible deadlines. Tests fail. Analytics don’t match. Issues come up. You need to be on your toes all the time. There will be times when you do not have time to work for anything that you’d planned, but the entire day is spent in fixing a mysterious bug.

Responsibilities

With great power, comes great responsibility. You will have to take charge. New deployments are pushed out on an average two to three times a day. Whatever project you are working on, you will have to be the one to carry the cross. There is no hiding behind the wall, or ‘it-was-not-me’ when you bring down the staging server.

Food and Parties

There are number of good restaurants and eateries around Instamojo which make it irritatingly easy for you to order food straight to the office. Also, if you are a vegan, you will have to deal with the never ending taunts and jeers from other co-workers. Also, the coffee machine will, thrice a day, tempt you with the aroma of the most delicious coffee you would've have ever smelt. The choice between ‘bean-bag’ and ‘coffee’ will be a hard one.

Too high Salary

You will be paid a lot. And that will make you wonder why on earth are these guys doing it? Why on earth am I getting paid so much? Am I Jonathan Ive/ Linus Torvalds/Seth Godin in making and I simply don’t know it yet? You will have trouble finding places or searching objects to spend your money.

Too much of Learning

You will learn a lot. Period. After the internship, when you look back at your previous-three-month-earlier-self, you will be wondering: Oh God! What have I changed into. What did these guys do with me? You will go back to your college and people will scratch their heads trying to wonder what happened to you during the internship. The stuff you’ll learn here, about coding, about start-ups, about design, will stick with you for long.

It will end, one day!

And, if you chose to ignore all my warnings and still went on to intern at Instamojo, then one day, two/three months later, you will have to face the terrible prospect of leaving the place. Trust me, it’s hard.

P.S. If you didn't get the sarcasm, you probably shouldn't work there.

Image Credits: Harshad Sharma