I’ve had trouble with this historically, my output per day is inconsistent. I’ll have days where I grind for 12 hours, and other days where I don’t really do anything.

Here are some of the ways I have unproductive days:
- “I’ll just watch this YouTube video”
- “I’ll just grab this snack”
- “I’m blocked by this person”

How do you manage your time as an intern?

I've been asked to write a design doc for my project; Samsara even has a structure to follow for these. After I understand how the overall system works, I will tackle. I want to make sure that there's a strong storytelling element in my doc, avoiding as much jargon as possible.

I try to learn by breaking stuff, but I think that stops working for larger and more complex systems. I also do a lot of grep-ing (e.g. figuring out where a function is called).

I've been able to steadily build my understanding of the Samsara codebase, but I would like to move faster as I have high goals for my internship.

How can I learn a large codebase fast as an intern?

Here are my Top 3 priorities:
1. Career growth - I want to become a senior/staff engineer as soon as possible.
2. Exciting product space - To have challenging work and growth opportunities.
3. Compensation - If I’m truly achieving the Top 2, this should come naturally.

Here are the options I'm thinking of:
- A medium sized public company like Samsara
- A pre-IPO company (e.g. Airtable)
- A Big Tech company like Meta or Amazon

Big Tech, Pre-IPO, or Medium-Sized Company: Where should my 1st full-time job be?

I want to go the extra mile as an intern and build out additional projects on top of what I've already been assigned. Right now, I'm proposing opportunities and ending messages with "If you want more info, let me know!". Is there anything else I can do?

How can I get interest around my proposed projects as an intern?

Samsara’s a great company, so I would love to receive a return offer and be regarded as a "superstar" intern. What high-level tips do you have to accomplish this?

How can I receive a return offer as a "superstar" intern?

Samsara Inc. is an American IoT company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Samsara develops a connected operations platform for tracking fleets of vehicles and other equipment.

Samsara

Software Engineering Intern

- Use the time pressure inherently baked into your internship: Keep in mind the amount of days you have left until your mid-cycle review and final review. If you want to make it more concrete, add a countdown to your computer or track it physically with a calendar.
- Leverage social pressures: If you can, go into the office. It's awkward to watch a YouTube video in front of your hard-working coworkers; this environment will make you want to be super productivity. If you can't go into the office, try virtual coworking, which is just a bunch of engineers hanging out passively on a video call. This is something I did among the Robinhood Android team.
- Have a daily goal: After defining it, make it more concrete by adding it somewhere to your computer or having a physical sticky note. Adhering to this the first couple times will be the hardest: After you get into the rhythm, your brain will register it as a habit and will just naturally want to achieve something every day!

Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal

Alex Chiou

We all have the same 24 hours in a day - The difference is that some are able to get far more out of it than others. Here's what they're doing that others aren't.

An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. In software, internships tend to have stronger importance with more competitive pay and real projects to work on.

How do you manage your time as an intern?

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