I’ve been working at IBM for the past six months, under IBM’s Global Business Services wing, building deep learning and IoT solutions for the Watson IoT practice. This started as my first co-op work term, like a regular internship, and went on to be so much more. As my term is about to end in less than 2 months, I thought I’d reflect on the wonderful learning experience I’ve had here.
I came into IBM with zero machine learning or artificial intelligence experience. I had only heard of computer vision then and barely knew anything about deep learning. Yet, I was able to deliver several custom computer vision solutions in the last six months that taught me a whole lot about image classification, real-time object detection, semantic segmentation and most importantly, deep learning — often regarded as the most effective tool in artificial intelligence. All of this was only possible because of the amazing support system IBM offered through my mentors, supervisors and team members — something I am extremely grateful for. In my first month alone, I went from not knowing what an artificial neural network was to delivering a custom real-time object detection solution powered by a complex convolutional neural network. The pace was super fast and I loved it. That was just the beginning and although I was always worried that at some point the work might slow down, it didn’t and that made my overall experience so much better! Every time a new project came in, I had to deal with different problems, try to come up with new solutions and experiment with ideas that I hadn’t worked on before. I was constantly learning and that’s one of the big things that made this work term so special and memorable. I enjoyed my work so much that pulling off all-nighters or staying really late at the office almost became a habit. It never felt like “work” — I loved what I did, so I dedicated all my time and energy to it and in that process I grew as a person.
Work, however, wasn’t the only exciting part about being at IBM. For starters, I really enjoyed beating my colleagues in ping-pong (granted I did lose sometimes too 😂; ok maybe a bit more frequently than sometimes but you get the point). Through ping-pong, I met some really amazing people who made working at the office a lot more fun. All the trash-talk during games, the coffee bets and of course the thrill of the game itself made some amazing memories that I will look back at when I’m no longer here. Then of course, there was the overall culture and the people. Everyone here is so modest and nice that I never felt like an intern/co-op student who knows or does less than anyone else here. I was always treated like a full-time employee and I always felt that my work was valued. None of my supervisors ever micro-managed anyone on the team and as long as the work got done, we all had a lot of flexibility in terms of our work hours and even location. Lastly, being part of a community of IBM’s student employees, Future Blue, and taking part in several internal IBM events was a great experience on its own. I’m talking about an internal IBM hackathon (that my team won 😉), multiple technical workshops that I led or attended (on deep learning, IoT, etc.), monthly office socials, multiple IBM events and conferences, etc. I learned a lot through these wonderful experiences, made some great connections and had the opportunity to really share and take feedback on my own work at IBM. So, not only did I have the opportunity to improve my technical skillset here, I also learned a lot about networking, communicating and other soft skills.
When I spoke to my friends who worked for other tech giants, some of them complained about low work-load and boring projects that restricted them from learning and making the most out of their internship. Before joining IBM, I was worried about having a similar experience, but as I look back, I can happily confirm that there hasn’t been a single week during my time here where I didn’t have a challenging problem to work on. My manager always kept me busy with really interesting projects, most of which involved using deep learning and other techniques to solve different computer vision problems, and I am extremely grateful to him for that. I was also given the opportunity to collaborate with other IBM teams around the world and learn from them in the process. For example, I worked on an R&D project with IBM Research where my team consisted of research scientists (PhDs) at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Centre in Yorktown Heights, NY — headquarters of the world’s largest industrial research organization. It was undoubtedly one of the best experiences I had at IBM, one that really taught me to be a much better researcher and problem-solver.
Lastly, my IBM internship positioned me well for my future career. Before I joined IBM, I was mostly a web and mobile application developer who wanted to learn more about machine learning. But, working at IBM got me into machine learning and helped me pivot my career into AI. It also helped me confirm (for myself) that I really enjoy working on AI and deep learning R&D. I recently received an offer for one of my dream internship positions — Intelligent Video Analytics & Deep Learning Intern at NVIDIA in Santa Clara, California — and that would most certainly not be possible without the amazing learning experience I had at IBM. It was what I learned and did at IBM that positioned me well for a future role in AI and as I dive deeper into deep learning research, I will always remember this internship as one of the most crucial turning points in my career that allowed me to get into this field in the first place. If it wasn’t for this super-intensive learning experience, I probably still wouldn’t know anything about the exciting world of machine learning and AI.
Hence, I strongly recommend applying to IBM for anyone looking to build a career in AI, IoT and/or deep learning. I had a great learning experience here and can happily say that I would love to work here full-time too in the future. It’s an amazing workplace, filled with super-talented people and a lot of energy — perfect for anyone who likes a fast paced work environment where you learn new things everyday and do challenging but very rewarding work. Remember, almost 400,000 people around the world found their place in IBM — you could be next!
A shout out to the people I met, worked with and defeated in ping-pong — thanks a lot for making my experience so amazing. Special thanks to Ashek, Subashan, Imad, Puvi, Asim, Bridget and Tad for all the support— very grateful to all of you. I will definitely miss 120 Bloor.
