Brandeis International Business School

The story of how I landed an internship as a software engineer in New York City actually starts at a virtual conference.

The Grace Hopper Celebration is one of the biggest annual conferences for women in technology and science. After attending the event in in-person in 2019 and really enjoying my experience, I decided to participate virtually in September 2020.

I connected with many companies at the conference, including ADP, an American provider of human resources management software and services. Shortly after the conference, an ADP recruiter sent me an email asking me to interview for an application developer role. There was just one issue — the interview was the next morning! My first reaction was to panic because I didn’t have enough time. But I woke up early the next morning to read over my notes and prepare.

Thankfully, the interview went smoothly and everyone I interacted with at ADP was very welcoming. After my interview, I knew this was the type of environment I wanted to be part of — one with kind, supportive, smart and diverse people.

Once I received an offer for the internship, I began working from home. I’m currently living in New York City, near Central Park. It has always been a dream of mine to live here and my work office is close by in New Jersey.

I work with the retirement services team at ADP and I’m very pleased with my manager and teammates. Everyone is so supportive and willing to help.

The best thing about my internship is that my tasks are not too specific. My main project is to identify use cases to integrate machine learning into the ADP retirement software. I am getting a good introduction to both product manager and software engineer roles. I love being creative, thinking of ideas and implementing them. I am also learning so much about retirement plans and new technologies.

Student Insights features blog posts and videos produced by current students and recent graduates of Brandeis International Business School. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author.