I became interested in C3 AI three years ago after attending their event for women in tech. I was very impressed with their scope of work and how C3 AI integrates AI solutions to optimize business processes in traditional industries. Since then, I have had two internships with C3 AI. Due to the pandemic, my first internship was mostly remote; however, this summer I was lucky to have an internship with everyone in the office. This was an incredibly positive experience for me.
This year I was interning on the Applications team alongside six other interns. Initially, we worked on the component library, doing enhancements for existing components and building prototypes for new components. It was an interesting experience that helped me get used to company processes, such as creating pull requests and going through code reviews. It also facilitated understanding of the underlying C3 AI component library framework and gave hands-on experience in React and javascript.
During my 11-week internship, our team, consisting of seven interns and two full-time employees, was trusted with building an entirely new application from scratch. The new application is an AI powered application to streamline processes, reduce cost and improve productivity. The scope of my work was vast, from working with UI components and building new types, to integrating model deployment framework and creating metrics for machine learning model. Our team went above and beyond, and six weeks later, we had a fully functional brand-new application ready to be demonstrated to potential customers.
Building a customer centric application was an intense but rewarding experience. I believe that the main success of creating such a robust application in such a short time can be attributed to the solid team that I worked with. Each of the six interns that I was lucky to have as my teammates were very talented individuals with their own unique personality and their own superpower that organically complemented the team and created synergy. In addition, we had a very experienced and caring mentor who was always eager to help and set up meetings with experts who could help with tricky tasks that we had on hand. I truly loved how we as a team helped each other, discussed technical implementation and architecture, and dug into our industrial domain.
C3 AI has a very strong learning culture. You can see it from how the company praises people for finishing their Coursera courses to sponsoring the master’s degree for its employees. I feel that most people at C3 AI share these values. Engineers and data scientists that I encountered always welcomed questions and were willing to share their experiences and provide meaningful feedback to help me progress as an engineer. I also learned both technical and soft skills from other interns. For example, looking at how effectively my teammates communicated with full-time engineers to get things done, I am no longer shy to ask for help or clarification. Being among such exceptional talent is challenging, but it constantly motivates you to keep going; after all, “if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” To sum up, the environment helps you keep the momentum and not stagnate in your professional field.
When you have a fantastic well-knit team, even sprint planning and writing retrospectives give you joy. I believe the friendly atmosphere was created by the great efforts of managers from all levels as well as the intern events organized throughout the summer. We learned about sailing in the bay and even participated in a race! Additionally, the interns had lunch and an opportunity to ask questions with C3 AI CEO Tom Siebel. We were also able to enjoy the amenities available to all full-time employees, including gym and pool access, and I loved that the company organizes happy hour every Friday with live music to mingle with coworkers. It is easy to notice that the company takes very good care of its employees and it creates a great and welcoming environment to work in.
I am incredibly grateful for everything that I learned this summer at C3 AI. It was great to build a complete application from the ground up. In just three months, I became a much more confident engineer and got a lot of teamwork experience. The importance of a good atmosphere inside a team and the company is undeniable, and C3 AI did a great job implementing it. I will miss my team a lot and hope that we will work together sometime after graduation.
