I Interned At Crowdfire And Here’s What Happened
March 1
I am a final year B.Tech student. My 7th semester had ended in December. I wanted to make the most out of my holidays and started looking out for internship opportunities at startups. I knew about Crowdfire because of a friend who was an avid user, and later, I got to know more about it on Quora, YourStory and Super. I wanted to intern with Crowdfire and sent them an email along with my resume.
I got a call from them later that day. It was followed by a telephonic interview where I was asked questions related to web development, my past projects on Github, the course that I was pursuing, the duration of my availability etc. The fact that the interviewer explained me the answers which I did not know was laudable. Two days later, I got the confirmation mail and I was expected to join on Jan 4th, 2016. It felt so surreal, and I got so excited that I barely slept that night and reached the railway station at 5 AM to make a reservation. When the ticket window opened at 10 AM, I was the first one in the queue anxiously waiting to get a confirmed ticket. Guess what, I got one (one of the most challenging tasks in India)!
It was the first dawn of 2016 when I started the journey. On reaching Navi Mumbai, I faced zero hassle as the company had already arranged for my initial accommodation. When I entered the HQ (that’s what we lovingly call our office), it did not look like an office; it’s a uber-cool (sometimes the literal cool because, AC :P) place I have ever been to. I was provided a Macbook Pro Retina, ouch! It took me some time to realize that I was actually at Crowdfire HQ holding a Mac. Following that, I was assigned my tasks but I was more interested in watching the stunning view from the 23rd floor!
It did not take me long to meet all the Firestarters (the people of Crowdfire) and to remember their names. The absence of formality makes it fun to work at the same time makes one responsible towards owning up things. Firestarters are cool, friendly, helpful, creative and at most times crazy. Our motto: “Let’s win together!”
Every morning I wake up excited to reach the office as early as possible. Crowdfire takes care of me for the rest of the day, with the food, snacks and a stocked up refrigerator with full of yummy stuff. Although there is work, a lot of it to do here and people are quite busy but there is always a positive vibe around. There is always so much happening everywhere on the floor right from design, code, shoots, interviews, meetings, selfies being clicked, people exercising or sharing jokes and laughter.
We go out for cricket and football every week after office. Friday evening is ‘Jung Ki Raat’ i.e., Counter Strike night. We got some great skilled cricketers and footballers in our tribe. Sometimes things get heated up on field, or someone gets injured or breaks spectacles while attempting a header. But, the next day we all make jokes around the controversies of last night.
Celebrations! Celebrations never stop at Crowdfire, be it birthdays, work anniversaries, or festivals. There’s a welcome ceremony for new joinees with the entire team around. Our Telegram group is always buzzing with updates, wishes, bugs, customer reviews and random stuff. There is one thing that makes Crowdfire more awesome place. In our small team of about 45 people, we have people from the length and breadth of India and from overseas. We get to know a plenty of interesting things about different places.
Last week, we partied hard to celebrate Crowdfire’s 4th anniversary. Right now, we are working hard to build Crowdfire 2.0, and we hope our 13 million users will love it. We also crossed 5 million downloads on Android this month.
Being an intern at Crowdfire, I got the opportunity to be a part of one of the coolest startups of India and I’m loving every minute of it. Every day is another opportunity to learn, do something new. I learned new things over the period (which also includes riding a skateboard), met awesome people, created things which I had never done before and got to play a lot. I fell in love with the place.
The best part: There is responsibility but no pressure. It’s my last day here (oh, these 2 months flew incredibly fast) but I want to return soon. I will miss our Crowdfire HQ and the Firestarters… a lot! I plan to apply for a full-time job with Crowdfire in the future. Until then CHEERS!!! :)
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