‘STEP’ping Stones To Success!
In this QnA article, Anjali Soni, Dept. of ECE, shares her story of working as a STEP Intern’20 with Google and a few other work experiences of hers.
1. You recently completed the Google STEP internship. What was the experience like?
It was really nice. It was supposed to be for a duration of at most 12 weeks but due to the current scenario, they had to cut it down to 6 weeks. I worked with the Google Nest team. All the STEP interns were working either in pairs or in a group of 3 other STEP Interns. We had one host and co-host to mentor us for the entire duration. I learned various tech-stacks and technologies used at Google. It was a great learning experience. Besides, working on the project, we had a bunch of activities for our recreation, like social meet with the team, where we used to play some online games together, virtual coffee and hat sessions, some leadership talks, Big Trivia events etc. Despite the internship being virtual, it rarely felt like I was working alone. Every member working there was very helpful. All of our doubts were addressed properly.
Those 6 weeks of hard work became more fruitful when I got a call from the recruiter about a return offer, a Pre-Internship Offer for my third year internship next year. I feel very fortunate to have gotten this opportunity to learn and grow. I am really happy and excited to work with Google again! 😃
- How did the covid-19 outbreak affect it?
I don’t think there were any major effects in my project and my onboarding at Google. The intern team had onboarded us in a virtual call. They explained the entire flow in the initial two days, even making the season interactive and funny. Yeah, I would say there were some problems with the shipment of our laptops and monitors in which we were supposed to work. But as my project was open source, I was able to work on my personal laptop itself. But my intern swag kit (T-shirt, bag etc.) is yet to arrive. 😉
- What was your team experience?
My team was very helpful and co-operative. I remember we had one video call at 2–4 AM, just to resolve one doubt related to the project. We were successfully able to develop the end project. We also got a chance to showcase our work through a demo presentation in a video call to the other employees in the Google Nests team. They were highly impressed by our work. We had weekly team syncs and 1:1 with host and co-host to discuss our progress so far and to resolve any of our doubts.
- What kind of questions did you face during the internship interview?
I should not reveal the exact question 😅 In my first interview I faced questions on graph, recursion and backtracking. Then, the second interview was based on linked lists and stacks and the corresponding follow up questions. Questions were new to me. I was able to solve all of them. They always ask the trade-offs of the approach that you follow. The interviews went well, and soon I heard from the recruiter about the offer. At the end of my internships, the host had arranged two mock interviews by some google employees. They also provided the feedback at the end, telling us what the interviewers expected, what are my shortcomings and all that. These mock interviews and their feedback were really useful.
- What was your preparation process for this internship?
I had one week to prepare for my interview from the day the interview dates were announced. Beside that, during the winter vacation last year, I had brushed up all the DSA concepts and solved some questions from InterviewBit. In the one week that I had, I revised all the theories again, solved the past year questions asked in interviews and more specifically, questions asked for Google STEP internship. It is easily available in Glassdoor and GFG. Four girls from our college had already interviewed at Google for this position, so I also solved the questions asked to them beforehand.
- How would you suggest beginners prepare for such opportunities in the future?
If you are interested in coding profiles, then one should definitely devote time to solve coding problems daily from any of the famous coding sites. Then, I would suggest being thorough with the implementation of different data structures, their time and space complexities, and then also going through the different algorithms. And yes, discuss your solutions, ask doubts to any of your friends or teachers or seniors, it is really helpful. In the interview, it is very important to convey your thought process to the interviewer properly. They give more importance to the way you approach the problem rather than your final solution that you will be writing. So yes, practice well and be confident.🙂
2. You also participated in GSSoC’20 before interning for Google. How would you describe your experience?
Girlscript Summer of Code was a 3 month open source programme. There are different projects available, you can choose any of them and start contributing by raising some new issues in the project or asking the mentor to assign a particular issue to you. I did not contribute much to it. I worked on one of the projects of the Girlscript Community app. It’s a great platform to learn development. Everyone should give it a try. It’s open for all.
There is a similar programme called RGSoC. This is a paid open source programme, only for girls. It was rescinded due to Covid-19 this year. 😪
3. Would you like to tell us about the mentorship programme under Microsoft Codess?
Yes, sure. Microsoft visits our campus every year to provide internship and mentorship opportunities to sophomore girls. They conducted a test and based on that result, they selected girls for the respective events. I got selected into one of the mentorship events. I completed it this month. We (almost all the other girls from IITG who got selected) had a mentor from Microsoft, who organised weekly meetings to discuss our doubts and explain different concepts. We did one project based on AI under the Engage Programme. It’s called Mars Colonization Programme. We had some webinars to attend and then some assignments to complete based on what we had learnt so far and submit the final project. Overall, it was a great platform to learn. Being a Codess has a great advantage in securing an internship with Microsoft in the third year so I’m looking forward to it.
4. What is WEIF, the event that you had attended by Goldman Sachs?
We had received a mail to apply for this event. Basically, we were supposed to submit an idea along with a prototype or an implementation presentation. Based on that, around 17 girls from our college got selected. I was one of the girls who got selected for this two day programme held in the GS Office at Bangalore. WEIF(Women Emerging in Finance) is a conference organised by the leaders at GS. There were different events there so as to promote girls to work in the finance sector and an amazing arrangement of food and accommodation.😁 To learn more about the details of the programme you can read the blog by one of my batchmates Akshita Jain. Here is the link. Hope you enjoy reading it.🙂
5. You have been doing Competitive Coding for the past two years. In what ways do you think it helped you in your Internships?
Honestly speaking, I rarely did any CP before landing the Internship at Google. I used to solve random questions related to some topics or company specific questions. I started it soon after receiving the offer seriously. I’m not very good at CP but I can solve a decent amount of questions. For doing well in CP, one should regularly participate in contests in Codeforces, Codechef and Atcoder beginner contests. Also, one should upsolve the problems that you were not able to solve in the contest. Personally I prefer C++ for coding, but it totally depends on you whichever language you are comfortable with. Language has very less importance in problem solving, it’s the thought process for a particular problem that matters.
6. Besides these, you have also been working in different roles in the college student bodies as well. Could you tell us about that?
I have worked as the Technical Secretary of my hostel Dhansiri. I am also the Branch Representative and Girls Representative in the student body of my department. I worked as an App Developer in the Students’ Web Committee as well. I had worked as a mentor for the Mentor-Mentee Programme under the Saathi club. Other than that, I also tried working in the Robotics and Electronics club. I did some technical projects there. I am also a part of the athletics team of IITG.
7. You have done such marvellous work on many different platforms. What advice do you have for your juniors that will edify them?
Well, it’s not marvellous yet to be honest. 😅 My only advice to everyone is be consistent and be honest with yourself. Results may not always be in your favour, but you have the capacity to turn them the way you want. Feel free to reach out to your seniors for any doubts, they are always there to help. And reach out to people on LinkedIn as well, it’s a great place to find awesome opportunities. Stalk people on LinkedIn. 😆 Read posts daily, you will always find something useful, maintain a good profile. Personally, I have benefited a lot from LinkedIn, some recruiters directly reached out to me with Internship offers like FB London, D.E. Shaw, Oracle and Palantir Technologies London. It’s rightly said, practice is the key to success. So, keep practicing and all the best!!!🙂 My LinkedIn profile anjalisoni3655. Feel free to reach out to me for any help.
