Q&A with Former Slalom Build Interns

A conversation with Kate Vickery, Katlyn Conklin, Phillip Nguyen, and Raymond Sutrisno

With Slalom Build’s award-winning summer internship program approaching, I began reminiscing about my own experience as an intern.

I remember the summer fondly; a challenging project, an amazing cohort, and tons of fun team-building activities.

I was curious about others’ experiences with the program, so I got in touch with some former interns (who are now full-time Builders) for a Q&A-style interview.

Let’s meet the panelists!

Kate Vickery (me): Solution Owner, Toronto, 2020 Intern

Katlyn Conklin: Experience Design, Denver, 2021 Intern

Phillip Nguyen: Software Engineer, Houston, 2019 Intern

Raymond Sutrisno: Software Engineer, Houston, 2019 Intern

How did you prepare yourself for the Slalom Build intern program?

Kate Vickery: During the interview process, we were given an overview of Slalom Build and their Product Engineering Methodology, which incorporates elements of Agile software delivery. So, I made sure to brush up on my Agile knowledge and picked up a few books on product management as well.

Katlyn Conklin: Right before I applied for the program, I actually went through a UX bootcamp. It was a pretty intensive 3-month program and I tried to exhaust all resources provided. I took advantage of the industry experience of my instructors, the cohort assistants, and the career coach my bootcamp provided. I also invested a lot of time to learn about UX outside of class and practicing UI skills. Lastly, right before I applied, I worked extensively on my portfolio and got inspiration from other portfolios and case studies to learn how to tell a story with my designs.

Phillip Nguyen: Lots of LeetCode-type programming questions online! I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into the internship, so I figured I’d sharpen my programming skills using LeetCode.

Raymond Sutrisno: Mainly by practicing how to speak during interviews and general programming question review. Explaining my thought process on how to solve certain things is definitely a skill I had to learn how to do by failing a lot of interviews. When the Slalom interview came it was relatively smooth for me. I was able to answer questions and talk about myself. As for preparing for the actual internship program, a lot of it was on-the-job learning and from my end just knowing what questions to ask and what to Google, all of which come from going to school and living life in general. The folks at Slalom who helped us during the internship were always glad to jump in if we had any questions or difficulties.

What was your favorite part of the program?

Kate Vickery: My mentor had a playful approach to Solution Ownership and encouraged me to make sprinting fun. So, our team developed its own theme and identity, and this came through in our demos. We got to get super creative with our PowerPoint decks and presentations, giving them personality and flair. Not only did it make it fun for us, but I think our stakeholders appreciated our take on demos as well.

Katlyn Conklin: There were a lot of things I loved about my internship program. I really enjoyed the team that I was on and we ensured that we had time to get to know each other. We set up a weekly cadence where we would have a meeting to hang out and play games which was nice since we were remote and living across Canada and the US and about 4 different time zones. Taking the time to get to know one another really helped our collaboration. The other great thing about the program which I was initially introduced to during my interview process is Slalom Build’s culture. From the get-go, it felt very welcoming and interested in the happiness and growth of their employees and then it was fantastic to actually see that was the case in practice. The internship was a controlled environment, but we were never coddled. We had support from so many people or if we were interested in talking to anyone in the company no matter their title, no one felt out of reach. Everyone was incredibly eager to mentor, provide advice, set up one-on-one meetings, etc. And at the same time, we felt independent enough to set up our internship and complete our project the way we felt would be successful.

Phillip Nguyen: Without a doubt, my favorite part of the internship was learning how to work as a team. In college, when I had a problem, I would generally figure it out by myself. The internship taught me to reach out to people when I got stuck and that has helped me so much in my career.

Raymond Sutrisno: Working with my team and getting that sprint to sprint cadence going on. I’ve never had anything like it, this was my first Agile experience. Having constant reminders of progress being made and happy faces during the demo was a good morale boost. Having internal sessions amongst ourselves to really deliver things was nice. Other than that, just the usual fraternization with the office and meeting some cool people at Slalom.

What surprised you about the internship?

Kate Vickery: I was surprised by how much autonomy I had as an intern. I felt very empowered to pitch ideas for virtual events and fundraisers and received a lot of support in executing them. By the end of the program, not only had I delivered a valuable project to Slalom, but I got to contribute fun extras as well. I think the program is great because you can choose your own adventure and lean into your passions.

Katlyn Conklin: I think how involved and hands-on we were with the internship impressed me. We truly were able to make our internship out to be whatever we wanted. I think it’s also cool how these projects aren’t busy work or vanity projects, but could potentially be applied and produced. For mine, I got to work on the Slalom Build Career Development Framework to turn the current interactive PDF and Excel document into a digital product. Toward the end, I heard about the Build U initiative and it’s cool to think that potentially some of the work that we did on our internship could be used or considered useful for this new initiative that will impact the careers of 1500+ Build employees.

Phillip Nguyen: I was surprised by how welcoming everyone at Slalom Build was. I was extremely nervous when I started but everyone was eager to connect with my intern class. Aside from calming my nerves, this made the whole experience enjoyable and unforgettable.

Raymond Sutrisno: How cool and chill the people at Slalom were. At first, I was a bit skeptical about how friendly everyone was and I was wondering how many of these people were actual genuine jolly friends vs how much of it is corporate Koolaid (I had no knowledge of Slalom’s work culture up to this point so I came in with some doubts). But now that I’ve been working at Slalom for more than 2 years, I can see that it is genuine. Seeing people, especially interacting outside of work during the pandemic cemented the notion of how close people are at Slalom.

If you could do it again, what would you do differently?

Kate Vickery: In the internship program, cities are paired, so there are two pods running in parallel. For my cohort, our project was a collaboration between the Toronto and Atlanta interns. I put a lot of effort into team building on the Toronto side but neglected to get to know the Atlanta interns better. If I could do it again, I would take time to do more social events with Atlanta, truly operating as one team.

Katlyn Conklin: I don’t think there is much that I would change about my internship. I liked the team collaboration, the project we were on, the product we produced, and the one-on-ones I set up during my internship. Of course, we had some setbacks and we stumbled, but that’s part of the learning process and really pushed us to improve and dig deeper. I was a little nervous in the beginning to set up one-on-ones with Builders and definitely would love to set up more—especially considering my internship and now as a full-time Builder I am still working remote and I think one of Build’s greatest strengths is its community.

Phillip Nguyen: If I could do it again, I would try to be less afraid of asking questions when I got stuck. It took me a long time to grow out of the “one-man team” mindset and I think I could have saved so much more time had I asked for help earlier.

Raymond Sutrisno: Participate more in Slalom culture (like Dungeons & Dragons). During the internship, our minds were focused more on delivering what we were expected to deliver. We were building a new MVP internal use tool (Build Center Experience) and I got the feeling that much wasn’t expected of us, but we really pulled through to get as much of the MVP done in 10 weeks. One particular time, we decided as a team to do some additional refinement which conflicted with a happy hour that the office was expecting us to be there to chat with, and we missed that. But I liked that about Slalom, the culture isn’t forced upon you, it’s organic and people’s time is respected.

What was your experience transitioning from intern to full-time Builder?

Kate Vickery: With the internship, we were working on an internal project, so our stakeholders were other Builders. Personally, I didn’t find this intimidating at all. But being placed on my first real project, I had to interface with my first real client. Although the internship program helped me develop executive presence and presentation skills, I was still terrified! However, I had a lot of support from leadership and now I feel totally comfortable interacting with clients.

Katlyn Conklin: Similar to what I said before, the internship was really a controlled environment for what it’s like to work on a project as a consultant with Build. But even as a full-time Builder, there are a couple of projects that I’m helping with in addition to my client projects and I still have all the support that I did on my internship. There are some nuances that I’ve had to learn and am still learning about working in consulting in a large company compared to working freelance in digital marketing and social media prior to this. But for the most part, the internship program is more like a 10-week onboarding/training program to become a full-time Builder. I felt very prepared for this transition to the point that it felt seamless.

Phillip Nguyen: NERVE WRECKING. I still felt like I didn’t belong and experienced major imposter syndrome for at least a year. However, looking back, I appreciate the experience I had because it allowed me to grow and learn from people with vastly more knowledge than me. Now, I feel comfortable at my job and aim to help out others who are experiencing imposter syndrome!

Raymond Sutrisno: Luckily, I came on board with some familiar faces (my fellow interns). It was easy because of the open collaborative culture at Slalom. Essentially as I see it, the difference between being an intern and a full-time engineer is that the full-time engineer spends more time talking to people. In my opinion, the internship made me learn how to start thinking about solving problems, and what sort of questions to ask based on my experience programming things. Being an engineer is just a continuation of that, but because I have more experience developing, it’s more about a conversation and having more say and more to say in the planning process.

You can learn more about the Build internship program here.