Confessions of an Intern at Rubify
“Working for Rubify gave me more than just an awesome job to put on my resume.”

My name is Lyndi. I am an American girl who had never left the country before coming to Singapore to work as an Account Executive intern for Rubify Technology for 6 months. The experience I’ve gained from work and living in a different culture is priceless. Being an intern means pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and gaining as much skill as you possibly can in the short time you have. It’s about proving that you are ready for the real world and sometimes it means doing some things the wrong way. Here are my confessions of an intern…
Confession #1: Pretending you know what you’re doing.
Starting as an intern in a new company means you really don’t know what’s going on in the first week or so. You try to listen and observe as much as possible, but when your boss asks you to test on staging and post the issues to the developers in Trello, you really have no clue what they even said. Especially going into the technology field, there’s so much lingo you’ve never heard of. I think my most common word during my first week was “huh?”. I’m a person that likes to try to figure things out on my own before asking for help. I quickly learned that Google was my best friend. Getting used to using the project management tool Trello is key. It allows you to see the progress of certain tasks for a project. Becoming familiar with Telegram is so important as well because most of the team is located in Vietnam so this is an efficient way to communicate with them directly. After the first week or two, everything gets a little more comfortable and you progress from “huh” to “can lah”. I can now say I’m skilled in basic technology lingo and Singlish (kind of). All it took was Google, asking the right questions and looking at what other people were doing.
Confession #2: Sometimes you have to do work outside of your job description.
Everyone at Rubify is extremely welcoming (and sometimes random) which makes the transition into working here very smooth. You may have to pretend you like some of the food they want you to try. This was especially the case for me and the other intern, Lilla, because we were in a new place and there were many foods that they had us sample for the first time. Most of them I thoroughly enjoyed, but some were just plain weird. The pink rose water and the shiny cakes were not for me, but I was always up to try new things. That’s what being an intern is all about. You have to try new things to grow your experience and skills even if that means doing things that aren’t specifically within your job. I was lucky enough to join the whole team at the annual Rubify Cohesion trip in Vietnam. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh and travelled all together to Nha Trang. It was incredible seeing these beautiful places but what really made it special was getting to know the Vietnam team. They are all such great people and we all became very close on the trip. It helped lower the communication barriers when we got back to work too because we had finally met in person. Not many companies will take you on a trip to a beautiful part of the world just to have fun and get to know each other. Rubify is truly one of a kind.
Confession #3: Working from home is not nearly as fun as going into the office.
Working from home is good in theory, but going to the Rubify office is way more fun. On rare occasions, I was able to work from home, I was about half as productive as I would be in the office. I would always get things I needed to get completed done, but it was harder to push the extra mile to do other non-urgent tasks. Working from home every once in awhile is okay, but going into the Rubify office is what made working there such a blast. The atmosphere in the office is goofy and allows you to be your complete self. Why work from home when you can be silly and have fun with your work friends?
Confession #4: Rubify is a one of a kind company with the best people.
I truly enjoyed working with everyone at Rubify in Singapore and Vietnam. I learned so much about technology and business from this group of people. They took me in and I’m so happy that I have lifetime friendships with all of them. Some of the best days were joining Kelly in meetings with clients. I liked hearing about and helping to develop their business ideas. But what I mostly looked forward to these days were hanging out with my boss, Kelly. I had so much fun talking over lunch or in the cab about business or just random things. I learned that a boss doesn’t have to be someone you fear but someone who you look up to and become great friends with.
Working for Rubify gave me more than just an awesome job to put on my resume. I gained intangible experiences that I am forever grateful for. Every single person at Rubify is so unique and amazing in their own way. I am happy to be their “random Caucasian” in a company of only Singaporean and Vietnamese. My advice for interns at Rubify or any other company is to embrace every second of it. The time goes by way too fast and you will probably never be an intern again. Every company has its differences, but always find the good and learn as much as you can. Interning is one of the best things you can do before entering the work force. You have the opportunity to test the waters of different fields and find something that fits exactly for you.
Lyndi Vince
