4 Myths About Work Culture That Every Intern (SIXTern) Must Know
By the final year of my Undergrad at Ramaiah Institute of Technology, I had formed my own opinions about recruitment processes to land the dream job that every Engineer wants. However, I was aware that the job market is highly competitive with a tough learning curve especially for recent graduates. Thankfully, internship opportunities are becoming an integral part of the college experience to provide a practical experience for beginners like me.
In this article, I would like to share my experience as an intern and how it helped bust four common myths associated with work culture.
I was among the few who made it to the end of the rigorous screening process by recruiters and Engineering Managers from Sixt Research & Development, India. I was taken onboard as a SIXTern to commence the initial exploration in the world of Mobility Tech that Sixt is globally known for. Many Engineers can relate to this unsettling trepidation during the initial phases of working at a multi-national corporation. But I was glad to be proven wrong and discovered I had to rest my fears emerging from a host self-invented myth about working in tech companies. Sixt India and its workplace practices helped me demystify most of it within the first month of my SIXTernship with the below learning:
MNCs Can Resemble Millennial Start-ups
Sixt is worldwide known as a Mobility leader and the numero uno in car rental business in Germany, Europe and other places. Besides having a diversified line of business around mobility and other ancillary areas, Sixt has corporate branch across continents. Sixt India, one of its R&D centers has a very welcoming atmosphere. The workplace resembles a new start-up that most millennials and Gen Z employees relate to. Although in the current wave of trends it may seem joining a start-up is common choice by college pass-outs looking to challenge the world, my preference is influenced by the freedom and opportunity to define one’s growth curve that start-ups provide. Sixt India exactly resonates this ideaology and provides ample opportunities to get hands-on with its impressive tech stack. They use latest tech in everything! There is freedom of choosing any language you would like to work with plus, they do not fear if a new better framework comes along. Sixt India like a millennial tech company is open to embracing changes.
SIXTerns are Not Side-lined from Projects
The second myth I immediately managed to debunk was SIXTerns have zero role and contribution in ongoing projects. To my surprise, I was not assigned some side-project that had no impact on the customers and users of Sixt mobility products. From day one, I am assigned tasks that go to production after successfully meeting all parameters. In just a month, three of my tasks are in production. Those moments you realize whatever you coded would be used by millions of people is just priceless! I can confidently say I managed to learn new things each day after working here.
No More Classroom Training
Imagine my relief of not being forced into long-hours of training sessions that are reminiscent of typical classrooms with least interactive lectures and tests! Sixt India has a comprehensive onboarding program that makes it easy to get acquainted with the workplace, important point of contact and its workflow. SIXT’s well-documented handouts about policies, NDA and confluence page of Go platform saved time that was well utilized in understanding coding at Sixt and other concepts to apply them in my daily tasks. Moreover, on-job learning gave me the hands-on training I needed to ensure that my contributions would be good enough to go to production.
Teams Can Be Collaborative Even without Working in Silos
There are multiple teams working on different products that ultimately contribute to the Sixt’s mobility solutions. As a SIXTern, I observed that teams don’t have to work in silos in order to be efficient and deliver as group. The age-old myth of working in clusters and with hierarchy for high-quality output was soon busted during the pre-onboarding induction at Sixt India office. The open office design and infrastructure allows employees to be seated anywhere on the floor and still be as collaborative as working closely with their respective teams and groups.
My role as an intern has same equity as that of other full-time employees. I am a part of important team meeting and included in most discussions that I can also attended remotely. I reckon, the most valuable take-away from my SIXTernship is that adaptability and flexibility is essential for not just survival but for the delivery of tasks even in times of adversities. The lock down during the COVID-19 outbreak and mandatory WFH wouldn’t have been less daunting without Sixt’s well-thought through investments in team collaboration tools and smart methods for working remotely with productivity.
To sum it up, I cannot image a better start to my career than SIXTernship program and thank my mentors and managers who will be yardstick against all those whom I would meet in future.
Let me know what you think. Leave your insights in the comment section below.
