How I Landed an Internship at DC’s Hottest Startup
A tale of a cold email, a tweet and a hackathon
Exactly 50 days ago I started my morning commute to Chinatown without the slightest clue what in the world I was doing.
A few months prior, I had set out to find an internship. I put together a list of DC tech startups, fired off a cold email to the most interesting one, and promptly fell asleep, dooming that list to be buried under mounds of A.P. review books and empty water bottles.
Against all odds, that next morning my inbox held a reply from Dan, the founder of Social Tables. In a somewhat absurd turn of events I managed to cameo in one of his tweets, which led to meeting a former intern. That in turn led to me attending a hackathon where Dan was a judge, and eventually an interview with Ed, head of the engineering team. That was the beginning of many firsts for me — my first appearance in a CEO’s tweet, my first interview, my first internship offer and, of course, my first internship.
I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. I had heard stories of interns chained to coffee pots, but I spotted a Keurig during my interview, so I knew I was safe on that front. Before I could begin to speculate on other potential intern activities, I found myself being introduced to the whole company during their weekly standup. An hour later I was diving into Pocket Planner, getting the new app ready for launch the next week. It was the fastest turnaround from “being new” to “being productive” I have ever experienced, and I loved it.
Since then it’s been a constant ride of learning new things, and applying them right away. I went from a Node.js rookie to building a full fledged app in barely a week, from having never touched React to absolutely loving it. People talk about learning-oriented cultures, and I can attest that Social Tables harbors a fantastic one. It’s both a way to frame problems and a way to execute solutions, and I’m convinced that it has been a huge part of their recent success.
On top of all of that, just being here every morning has taught me lessons far beyond learning about new technologies. One day I hope to find myself at the helm of my own company, and Dan has been a shining example of how to do things the right way. There is no better testament to great leadership than a team of people who are genuinely happy to be doing what they are doing, and one day I can only hope to create a similar atmosphere.
As I finish out my last two weeks here at Social Tables, I look forward to learning just as much as I did in the first six. It’s been an incredible experience, and I can’t thank Ed, Dan, and everyone else enough for the fantastic opportunity. To anyone else who might have the same opportunity in the future, by all means take it! You won’t regret it.
