Summer Internship Diary: Bloomberg Engineering Interns Edoardo, Eesha, and Shreya

Eesha Irfan

School: University College London (UCL)
Graduating Year: Class of 2022
Major: MEng, Computer Science
Working from this summer: London, UK
Internship Team: Sell-Side Pre-Trade (SSPT) Data Management
Mentor: Jean Desmarchelier
Notable Activities: Social Secretary of the UCL Technology Society (UCL TechSoc)

Wrapping up my summer internship (September 13)

Your summer internship is coming to an end in the next few weeks. Tell us what you accomplished in terms of your internship project.

The main objective of my internship project was to implement Docker environments for testing integrations tests. During my time, I managed to set up and create Docker testing environments for three services my team owns. Moreover, I configured a continuous integration workflow tool that allowed for testing of integration tests with every change pushed — as an extra check. This was a big achievement, as this feature had not been implemented for any repository my team owns. I was also able to package database schemas so they could be directly installed into the Docker container, instead of being stored in the repository itself.

Another large part of my project was to mock external services that create unwanted side-effects on components the team does not control. I was able to successfully mock the necessary services and connect them in a way that the main system did not realise the external services were mocked and would not actually create the tickets they were requested to make. Thus, even with the mocked services connected to the system, I was able to get all the integration tests to pass.

Finally, I also managed to create a database and the necessary handle functions to store details of requests sent to the mocked services so they can generate responses based on the request rather than giving static responses. It has been a challenging project with a steep learning curve; however, my team has already started using the testing environments that I implemented, which has given me a very rewarding feeling.

What was your favorite event of the summer?

My Engineering department had an online Codenames tournament. My team actually made it to the semifinals, which was very exciting and encouraged us to bond as a team. That experience was valuable in exposing me to other people in my department that I was unlikely to have met through my daily tasks. It expanded my network and gave me a sense of belonging at Bloomberg.

Have you come across any Bloomberg employee perks during your internship?

The Best of Bloomberg (BOB) programme gave me free access to cultural sites in London. I got tickets to see the HMS Belfast and took a tour inside the Tower of London. I am really grateful that the company offers this perk, as it encouraged me to understand more about my city and gave me access to exhibitions and sights that I never would have gone to otherwise.

How has your relationship with your team/mentor evolved?

At the start of my internship, I did not ask many questions about my team’s lives outside of work, but now our relationship has evolved to where I feel like an established member of the team who is able to contribute more in both technical and personal discussions. My mentor is very good at being my support network, and I have become more comfortable with sharing my stresses with my mentor, knowing that he is able to reassure me.

What’s one piece of advice you have for future interns?

Constantly communicate with your manager and mentor about your progress and the obstacles that you are experiencing. When undertaking a project, it is normal for additional complexities to arise that can change how long it takes to complete the task. The best thing you can do is always keep your mentor updated. This prevents them from being blindsided by unmet expectations close to the deadline.

What’s one thing you learned about finding success working in a large tech company?

I have found that the way to find success working in a large tech company is to expand your network. Engage in as many talks, chats, and activities as possible to meet new people — especially other engineers. In a large tech company, there is such a diverse range of talent and every person you meet will teach you something. Sometimes the person you meet may help you solve a difficult problem.

Describe your Bloomberg Engineering internship experience in one sentence.

My experience has been challenging, but rewarding, because I feel like I have made a valuable impact on my team 🙂 .

Working on my project and getting to know others (August 31)

What are some of the interesting technical challenges you are facing? What problems are you trying to solve?

One pivotal issue in my project is trying to mock services that are called by the main service that our user-facing function connects to. This way, the main service does not hit the services in production, as that would create unwanted tickets. If successful, we would be able to run the function completely and interact with it normally through a user-interface, as though everything in the back-end was actually executing, while still being able to control all the side-effects.

To solve this, we are using a library created by Bloomberg to create fake instances of the services without needing to go through the work to register them as new services. This library has only ever been used in Python pytest files for controlled requests with known responses. This makes my use case for it rare. I want it to keep the mocked services running indefinitely in order to handle any requests thrown at it during manual testing without knowing before run-time what the response should be. I find this approach very interesting because it requires lots of out-of-the-box thinking.

How do you spend your breaks?

During my breaks, I try not to look at screens and make sure to eat well. When I am in the office, I tend to use my breaks to socialise with other people, especially the other interns. Many interns are periodically coming to the office in London, so our lunch gatherings can become quite large. However, when I am at home, I love to just sit on the sofa and watch television during my lunch break. I find it gives me adequate downtime to step  away from the particular bug I am tackling that day.

How does your team stay connected beyond meetings?

My team often keeps our meetings informal so we are able to chat about our lives and plans for the week during them. However, as COVID-19 restrictions have loosened up, we are also hoping to have a team dinner, as some other members of my team have never met the rest of the team in person.

Each week, interns are connected for a virtual coffee roulette. Have you met anyone new?

Yes, I have attended a few coffee roulettes. Every time so far, I have been matched with people from different time zones. Everyone I’ve met were new people to me and it was exciting to hear about how work life differs in their countries. As the coffee roulette I have signed up for is for interns, we also spend a lot of the time talking about the vast differences between our university educations.

Halfway through my summer internship (August 16)

You’re halfway through your summer internship. How do you feel it’s going?

The time has really flown by! I have really enjoyed my time so far in this internship and I really look forward to going into work. I contribute this to Bloomberg’s culture. The environment is such that there is no micromanaging as to by when to get the work done, which thus creates a productive environment where I find myself wanting to work harder each day to exceed my limits. The technologies I work with are very specific to Bloomberg, so the learning curve has been very steep, but I have found that I can ask anyone for help and I never feel like I have asked too much.

I have also put in an effort to immerse myself into Bloomberg life outside of my team by participating in the Sell-Side Codenames tournament and signing up to help contribute to the Coffee Roulette function. From this, I think I have learned a lot about Bloomberg’s values and it has broadened my network. In short, I’m loving life here 🙂 .

How do you make the most of your day?

I have started a structured routine of organizing my day, which consists of three sticky notes in the morning. The first one is where I write down the meetings I have that day, the second is where I write my to-do list for the day after our daily stand-up meeting, and the last one is where I write a loose guide for the hourly breakdown of my day as I find myself working on tasks related to completely different projects. This helps me plan when to switch gears. Furthermore, I have been trying my best to come into the office, which further helps me add structure to my days, because I know I have to eventually go home, so I feel like I have to make the most of my time in the office during the day.

How did you do during the Intern Puzzle Week? What did it help you learn about yourself?

Unfortunately, my team did not do very well on the Intern Puzzle Week, as we came in second to last. However, the morale of my team never faltered. We worked together on most of the puzzles and found humour in our circumstances. It taught me that the fear of failure will not deter me from giving 100% to the task at hand.

What did you learn during the recent resume/LinkedIn workshop?

The resume workshop was a good recap of similar talks I had previously attended. I learnt that a bullet-pointed description of your experience is the best way to present yourself in an engaging way.

How did you find the Software Infrastructure Engineering Expo?

The expo was very insightful, as I previously had very little interest in Software Infrastructure. One of the panelists actually interviewed me for the internship, so it was interesting to learn more about him. I learned that Software Infrastructure plays a vital role in supporting what everybody else does. I also found it fascinating to see how the panelists ended up in Bloomberg’s Engineering department from diverse backgrounds. They have worked on really important projects that had a significant impact on other departments, and it was inspirational to see what motivates them to go to work every day.

Your team won the Intern Day of Service. How did your pitch meeting with Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Antha Williams go?

It was an honour to meet Antha Williams. She is very knowledgeable about environmental issues. We had to present our idea to her, which she really liked, especially because she believed that it closely aligned to what Mike Bloomberg himself believes is the strategy to encourage people to care about environmental issues. Hearing her input on the issue was insightful, and presenting our idea to her was an excellent practice of our presenting skills. The experience showed me how down-to-earth the senior management at Bloomberg is; I look forward to similar future opportunities.

Settling in With My Team & Starting My Summer Project (August 2)

How did you transition into your team?

My team is the Sell-Side Pre-Trade Data Management team. After initial training, I got to meet my mentor who took me through my whole project, set weekly milestones, and reviewed the strengths of every team member so I would know who to go to when I got stuck. After these introductions, I found myself ready to start the project and eager to contribute to the team.

Now that you are settling in, have you met everyone on your team?

Yes, I have met everyone. Because we follow an agile methodology, we have daily meetings to discuss what we had done the day before and what our plan is for the current day. I really see the benefits of this approach, because it gives me a set time to gather and share my thoughts and concerns about my work, whilst also supporting others.

What does your team work on?
The data management team is responsible for providing market and configuration data in our order management solution that helps sell-side traders connect with electronic markets.

How do you stay motivated while working remotely?

I have found that making plans to meet people and having human interaction is key to staying motivated. It sets structure to your days and pushes you to make sure your tasks are done, whilst also providing a healthy work-life balance. On top of that, I am grateful I can abstract my home living to my bedroom for work purposes and sleep and my living room for relaxation. By creating a separate work environment, I do not find myself unwinding in the same place I am working, which helps me remain focused. Explicitly separating these two environments has increased my productivity.

What is the main focus of your project this summer?

The main focus of my project has been to create isolated containers that hold all the dependencies needed to be able to run tests on functions without actually changing their state. This is very useful, as without these isolated environments, the only way to test a feature for some functions is to make physical changes to the system, which can potentially break deployment and testing environments and impact other teams.

You recently met your connector mentor. How does this relationship differ from your mentor on your team?

My relationship with my connector mentor serves a very different purpose to my mentor on my team. My connector mentor provides me with insights into the rest of Bloomberg and I learn a lot from her about how other teams operate and how to manage a career at Bloomberg. On the other hand, the mentor on my team is my support system for my project and my day-to-day challenges.

What did you learn about the role of Guilds within Bloomberg’s Engineering department?

Guilds represent the technology communities at Bloomberg. They are where you can ask experts about the issues you are facing with various technologies. I have really learnt a lot from the Guilds and have even scheduled calls with people I would never have known to go to with my bugs because of these communities. People in the Guilds have a deep understanding of the technology they champion, which makes the knowledge they share very valuable. I already feel the quality of my technical abilities improving greatly as a result of my participation.

What was your project during the Intern Day of Service? What did you learn about corporate philanthropy at Bloomberg from this experience?

During the Intern Day of Service, I first attended a talk by the Clean Air Fund. The speaker shared very distressing information about the hidden impact of air pollution on humans, including its impact on fetal development. Breathe London, an initiative created by Clean Air Fund in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, seeks to better monitor the air pollution in London. Some of their surprising results have been the ability to isolate which roads in London have particularly bad air quality and uncovering the reasons for it. To me, this highlighted the creativity and hard work that Bloomberg Philanthropies puts into its projects.

My team’s project was called Breathe Better (BB), an app aimed at tackling the issue by educating people about air pollution, the silent killer. By helping people understand the personal impact it can have, our hope is that they will become more environmentally friendly. We proposed that the app contain helpful tips for reducing your impact on air pollution, and a way to track how much air pollution a person was exposed to on a weekly basis, which you can then compare to other people. It would also allow people to journal their health — especially their respiratory health — so if they felt particularly bad, they would be able to see whether their exposure to air pollution was a possible cause.

You recently heard from Bloomberg’s Chairman, Peter Grauer. What was one key thing you learned from him?

Peter Grauer is a really successful, yet humble, man. It was a great experience to be able to hear about his journey, what made him stay at Bloomberg, and how he champions diversity. One key thing that I learned from him, which I have already started implementing, is just going above and beyond with the preparation for everything that you do, big and small. He does this to show appreciation for those in the meeting that had put in the effort to ask for his opinion. Doing this helped me find purpose in my tasks, made me a lot more confident, and has improved my work ethic for projects, especially voluntary ones. I thoroughly enjoyed his talk and I believe he imparted wisdom that, if implemented consistently, can lead to genuine success.

You also recently heard from Bloomberg’s CTO, Shawn Edwards. What was one key thing you learned from him?

Shawn Edwards was really insightful about where Bloomberg was heading technology-wise and explaining the importance of that direction. The one key thing I learnt from him is the importance of open source technologies. He put a great emphasis on them and their impact on the success of engineering, especially at Bloomberg, where we not only leverage open source technologies, but also help develop them as well. This has made me a lot more interested in open source projects and seeing where I can personally have an impact on the direction of these technologies.

Diving Into My First Week (July 19)

How did you prepare for the first day of your internship?

We were sent an itinerary beforehand, so I prepared by researching each technology we would cover. This way, I would have a basic understanding of what each is and what it is used for before it was properly taught to me. I also made sure to search on LinkedIn for every employee I knew would be a part of my training week so that I had a better understanding of the people I would be working with.

We also had to set up the laptops we were sent and to log in before the first day. I really struggled with this and had to call Bloomberg Customer Support. My first experience with the support team was amazing and I was shocked to receive better service than any other company before. The lady on the phone didn’t just send me links to help articles; she walked me through the whole set-up step-by-step.

What are you most excited about this summer?

I am very excited for the intern events and networking aspects of the internship, as I will be exposed to people with many different career paths and learn different ways of working. However, the most exciting thing about the summer for me personally is the confidence this internship will instill in me about my technical abilities. I am very motivated to learn as much as I can and to develop my overall skills to become a better software engineer. Just from what I have done so far, I already feel a lot more sure about myself. I believe this attests to Bloomberg’s uplifting culture. I cannot wait to continue running into interesting challenges and learning how to tackle them.

What was something you learned last week about Bloomberg that surprised you?

Anecdotes from the past always intrigue and motivate me. For example, during financial training, the instructor told us how Mike Bloomberg himself sold Terminals to the instructor’s company back when it required physical set-up on individual computers.

I was also very surprised by the welcoming atmosphere at Bloomberg. Everybody wants to help and help can be found through so many resources, including group chats for different technologies where people are eager to answer your questions.

What was the structure of your first week?

My first week was dedicated completely to training. It was very valuable and the format it was presented in really suited my workstyle. The days were split up into multiple sessions with regular breaks. The sessions constituted either learning content or lab tutorials. As there was a live instructor with us during the whole training rather than being left to watch videos about the different technologies, I believe I received the highest quality training — even for those technologies I was already familiar with. For example, the way Bloomberg teaches Python was very interesting, as it was refactored in such an efficient way using pythonic techniques I had not encountered before. The structure was very clever in that it took us step-by-step through each layer of code development, whether it was back-end or front-end, and then it was tied together in an end-to-end deployment tutorial to illustrate how all the components interacted together.

You attended a training session about data centres. What were some of the key takeaways from this session?

The key takeaway I took from this talk was the intricate thought process taken in regards to the data centres, which are an important part of the company’s operations. It was very interesting to hear the story of the company’s retired data centre site in lower Manhattan which proved vulnerable to Hurricane Sandy. The talk helped bring clarity to how Bloomberg runs its services.

How have you been managing socialising with other interns during the remote internship?

In addition to the intern events that the company has planned for us, as an intern group we felt that we would have to put more effort into getting to know each other to truly make the most of the summer. Many of the interns who are based in London decided to meet up after work (outside of the programmed events) to get to know each other in a non-work setting. I truly believe that we will establish a true sense of camaraderie by the end of the summer.. Bloomberg hires those who would thrive in its culture and I think this is demonstrated by how well we all got along that evening. I hope to continue spending time with the other interns outside the office, in addition to attending community events and coffee roulettes.

Getting Ready for My Summer Internship (July 9)

Why did you choose to take an internship with Bloomberg this summer?

I was intrigued by Bloomberg, as nearly every person I had met had been with the company for more than five years, which is not a common sight at other top tech companies. Therefore, I chose to work here in order to understand what makes people stay here so long. I was also very impressed at the extent of the philanthropy that Bloomberg involves itself in, something which did not falter even in the midst of the pandemic. Ultimately, Bloomberg was my top choice because it gives its interns meaningful work rather than the typical “intern projects.” Our projects have real use cases within the business, and an intern can make a real impact on their team.

What are your goals this summer?

My main goal is to expose myself to as many different technologies as I can. Bloomberg provides so many opportunities to learn, especially with the Bloomberg University (BU) and I aim to broaden my knowledge. Despite my working remotely, Bloomberg will provide many opportunities to network, so I am also aiming to work on building my network this summer and learning from as many people from different backgrounds as I can. There are so many teams at Bloomberg, and I hope to interact with as many as possible. The goal is to stay as involved as I can in all the activities, especially the ones for interns. Even this blog is my way of diving further into life at Bloomberg and demonstrating my passion for the company.

How did you prepare for your internship?

As soon as I confirmed the internship offer, I began extensively researching the company’s culture, with the goal of immersing myself as much as I can into the company, as my internship is remote. I watched the documentary about the Bloomberg London office on YouTube, which aided my understanding of what is important to the company. After being told about my project assignment for the summer, I prepared by refreshing my skills in Python, SQL, and JavaScript, the programming languages I will be using. Through this preparation, I have given myself a real purpose in this internship and I am really excited to start working at Bloomberg. I have also been working on my WFH setup and researching how to set myself up ergonomically so I can be comfortable sitting in my chair throughout the work day.

What are you hoping to get out of your internship this summer?

The main thing I wish to get out of this internship is to undertake a satisfying project where I feel like my contributions have made an impact on the team. In doing so, I hope to improve my coding abilities to an industry level, which is very different to coding learnt at the university level. I aim to improve my knowledge of end-to-end development and my understanding of every layer that leads to code deployment. From a non-technical standpoint, I hope to make meaningful connections by putting all my effort into making the most of the remote internship, including attending talks and engaging with some of Bloomberg’s many D&I communities. I also hope to shake off the university-life routine this summer and to focus on actively leading a healthier, happier, and more productive lifestyle!

Shreya Jadhav

School: Waseda University
Graduating Year: Class of 2022
Major: CS & Communications Engineering
Working from this summer: Tokyo, Japan
Internship Team: Feeds SRE
Mentor: Ondrej Balaz
Notable Activities: Main Stage volunteer at Slush Tokyo, Hands On Tokyo (HOT) volunteer

Wrapping up my summer internship (September 13)

Your summer internship ended a couple of weeks ago. Tell us what you accomplished in terms of your internship project.

My internship in APAC ended on August 27th. It was great, and I really enjoyed collaborating on my project with my mentor. We actually finished the prototype for the project two weeks prior to the end of my internship. I spent the rest of the time adding some finishing touches, presented my project to my team, and worked on additional features!

What was your favorite event of the summer?

My favorite event of the summer has to be the Wildgoose Event with the APAC interns. It was a great icebreaker and I got to collaborate with interns from lots of offices. Overall, all the intern events were very enjoyable. We organized several independent events/virtual chats among us as well.

Have you come across any Bloomberg employee perks during your internship?

While I may not have been able to see the Pantry in all its glory, it was my favorite perk during the internship. There were a variety of drinks and snacks to choose from. There were also different types of bento boxes available for lunch, which I took advantage of each time I went to the office. My favorite drink to make was always hot chocolate.

How has your relationship with your team/mentor evolved?

As my internship progressed, I started getting more comfortable with asking my team all the random questions I had about Bloomberg, their work, what they do outside work, etc. My mentor and I always talked about a lot of things besides work since the start of my internship, so that remained mostly the same. We also started to get a better understanding of how we worked and communicated our ideas.

What’s one piece of advice you have for future interns?

I’d say to just have fun and explore events and communities outside your team. While the intern project is obviously a major part of the internship, I believe it is just as important to understand the company culture. Bloomberg has a ton of fun and interesting events taking place across all its offices, and I tried to participate in as many as I could. I got to learn a lot about how other departments and offices work at Bloomberg. The diversity and inclusion events also present a great opportunity to learn about all the amazing things that fellow employees are doing.

What’s one thing you learned about finding success working in a large tech company?

While it is great to learn how to balance several different technologies and tools, my personal opinion is that the best way to find success is by finding your niche. In addition, being helpful to others and getting to know the people around you is a great way to build strong relationships with your co-workers.

Describe your Bloomberg Engineering internship experience in one sentence.

A very productive summer with great food and wonderful people!

What are some of the interesting technical challenges you are facing? What problems are you trying to solve?

The goal of my project is to develop a queryable system that displays various services, their properties, and how they depend on each other. As an SRE, it’s very important to be able to see the bigger picture, and this project allows us to do just that. In terms of technical challenges, my project aims to provide quite a bit of flexibility to the system’s users, and that usually means the back-end needs to incorporate a lot of use cases and some level of ambiguity. It’s the most challenging and interesting part of my project.

How do you spend your breaks?

I’m mostly cooking during my breaks. I usually take a slightly longer lunch break so that I don’t have to rush my cooking. It also gives me the time to enjoy eating the food I’ve cooked!

How does your team stay connected beyond meetings?

Apart from work meetings, we have a stand-down meeting every Friday where we talk about pretty much anything. Even during my 1:1s with the team, around half the time is spent just asking each other what we’ve been up to. We also have messaging channels where we share random posts and memes!

Each week, interns are connected for a virtual coffee roulette. Have you met anyone new?

Yes! I really enjoyed the virtual coffee roulette sessions that we have every  week. I’ve met interns from a lot of different areas of the company, including News, Analytics, Sales, and Global Data. It’s refreshing to take a break and hear about something entirely different from what I’m working on. I’ve met people from across APAC, and it’s interesting to hear how different their days are from mine. Some of the interns even had fascinating hobbies and activities outside of work.

What was your project during the Intern Day of Service in APAC? What did you learn about corporate philanthropy at Bloomberg from this experience and the talk by Bloomberg Philanthropies‘ Fiona Kim?

Our project was to provide a social media consulting service to Arakawa River Clean-aid Forum, a local nonprofit organization (NPO) partner. Our aim was to provide them with constructive feedback and suggestions to enhance their communication, branding, and marketing strategies.

One key takeaway from this experience was how fulfilling it feels to give back to the community and try to help out any way we can. Almost everyone I’ve met at Bloomberg is very passionate about volunteering and are a part of several Diversity & Inclusion communities as well. What I found very interesting is that Bloomberg also matches your charitable donations. I truly appreciate how much philanthropy is encouraged here, as it makes me want to do better.

Halfway through my summer internship (August 16)

You’re halfway through your summer internship. How do you feel it’s going?

I think it’s going really well! I finished a prototype of my project last week and demoed it to my team. My mentor and I are collaborating on my intern project regularly and I enjoy my 1:1s with him. I’ve also gotten to know the other interns and participated in several events with them. I’m a bit sad that it has passed by so quickly 🙁 .

How do you make the most of your day?

I start work early in the morning. It’s very hot and humid in Tokyo right now and I feel most productive before the heat peaks. Apart from that, I have regular 1:1s with my mentor and manager to keep on track with my project and internship in general. I also enjoy having my evenings free to mostly wind down. Most of my meetings are scheduled in the afternoon, so that leaves my mornings open for me to work on my project.

How did you do during the Escape Room challenge? What did it help you learn about yourself?

The APAC interns recently had a “Wildgoose Around the World” event today, where we played an escape room game! My team did really well, we placed first with 15 minutes to spare 🙂

You recently heard from Bloomberg’s Chairman, Peter Grauer. What was one key thing you learned from him?

The key thing I learned from Peter Grauer was the importance of hard work and persistence. He mentioned that these qualities are the main reason he is where he is right now. Overall, it was a very interesting talk and we got to ask questions to him as well.

Settling in With My Team & Starting My Summer Project (August 2)

How did you transition into your team?

My transition into the team was pretty smooth. Every morning, we have standups (our team calls them sit-downs since the pandemic started), so I got the chance to say hi to everyone then. I also have daily 1:1s with my mentor, so I got to ask quite a few questions about the team and what it’s like to work with everyone. I have been lucky to meet most of my team in person, which allowed me to get to know everyone well. They’ve been incredibly helpful whenever I’ve needed a hand.

Now that you are settling in, have you met everyone on your team?

Yes! I have met my teammates either virtually or in person. I’ve met almost everyone in the Tokyo team in person, but some of my extended team is in Hong Kong.

What does your team work on?

The Feeds SRE team is all about looking at the big picture and trying to find solutions to solve bottlenecks faced by many teams. Our main focus is on observability and scalability. We help coordinate developer operations and monitor the performance statistics of our designated area. This means the Feeds SRE team is managing a lot of machines and software, and is involved with several deployments every week.

How do you stay motivated while working remotely?

Working from home can sometimes feel a bit dull. But I found that scheduling meetings for work and 1:1s for fun does keep me motivated pretty much every day. I also enjoy having chunks of time between meetings to work on my project. I’m really interested in my project, so it feels like I always have something to look forward to. I’ve also found that treating myself to a few slices of cake here and there gets my spirits up every time! 🙂

What is the main focus of your project this summer?

The main focus of my project is how to obtain a lot of abstract data and provide it in an understandable form. This allows us to see the bigger picture in terms of how different specifications are applied to various systems. The caveat is that I’ll be working with information that is not directly observable. It’s a challenge I find particularly interesting, and I am working closely with my mentor to solve this problem. A future use case for my project could enable more predictability of potential system issues in the future.

You recently met your connector mentor. How does this relationship differ from your mentor on your team?

My mentor and I talk about several topics, from my project to what restaurant near the office has the best food. I can talk to my intern connector about anything as well, but the primary focus of our discussions is how to make the most out of my internship in terms of activities outside of my department.

What did you learn about the role of Guilds within Bloomberg’s Engineering department?

I learned that there is a Guild at Bloomberg for almost everything! There are also lots of technical meetups. I think it’s a great way to meet people from different teams and offices. My mentor encouraged me to attend the Go programming language meetup since my project primarily uses Golang. The Guilds and meetups have really encouraged me to learn about topics I normally would not have covered on my own.

Diving Into My First Week (July 19)

How did you prepare for the first day of your internship?

My mentor told me about the tech stack the project would use prior to my internship, so I briefly reviewed it and tried to get a high level overview of what I would be doing. It’s also the first internship I’ll be doing (partially) in-person since last March, so the first day was very exciting for me. It almost felt like the first day of school or university. Other than that, I also spent some time getting the internship’s logistics figured out.

What are you most excited about this summer?

I really enjoyed meeting the team during my first week. I’m excited to continue working with them on my project this summer! I also loved the office and how there’s a specific function on the Terminal that lets you learn about the daily lunch menu. Overall, I’m really looking forward to spending the next several weeks with everyone at Bloomberg.

What was something you learned last week about Bloomberg that surprised you?

Something interesting I learned about Bloomberg is how the the company’s offices are designed to encourage interactions between people from different teams. Here in Tokyo, the office has a central staircase which lets you meet more people than you would in an elevator. The pantry also has a lot of open space to sit and chat with others (pre-pandemic of course). My mentor even told me about the events that took place at the office every month or so. Even with everything being online, I still got the chance to meet and talk with people outside of my team through the virtual events, programs, and my intern connector.

What was the structure of your first week?

The first week was mainly focused on onboarding all the interns and getting to know the team. I spent the first few days understanding how Bloomberg works internally and what it’s like to be on an SRE team. After doing that, I started on my general training and setting up the developer tools I would need for my project. I also got to tour the office and meet my entire team. We virtually met the other interns across APAC as well.

You recently heard Global Head of Engineering and co-COO Vlad Kliatchko speak to the Engineering interns. What was one key lesson he imparted to you?

During our recent AMA session with Vlad, I learned a lot about how Bloomberg is evolving and innovating at the moment. Something interesting I learned is how important Diversity & Inclusion is to Bloomberg Engineering and the positive impact it has had on the company. There were many people from different backgrounds asking questions and interacting in the session.

You attended a training session about data centers. What were some of the key takeaways from this session?

One of the things I learned is that trading stocks and other commodities requires information to be delivered and updated very very quickly. It is absolutely essential that the data centers are operating efficiently.

Getting Ready for My Summer Internship (July 9)

Why did you choose to take an internship with Bloomberg this summer?

When I first applied to Bloomberg, I didn’t know much about what the company actually did. While researching and talking to developers at Bloomberg I got to learn about its relaxed work culture, interesting intern projects, and fun activities. Even during my interviews, everyone had lovely things to say about the company. It aligned perfectly with what I was looking for in an internship.

What are your goals this summer?

To learn as much as possible! Internships are the perfect time to learn about what working at the company is like. I want to participate in social activities and learn about the Bloomberg Terminal. I’ll be interning on the SRE team this summer, something which is quite new to me. It’s the perfect opportunity to see how different it is as opposed to being a software developer and writing code.

How did you prepare for your internship?

The week before my internship was pretty busy. I’ve set up my work laptop, learned about the Bloomberg Terminal, and filled out a bunch of forms. I also had a virtual meeting with my mentor to get to know more about the team and the office! I learned about the tech stack, the scope of my project and my team.

What are you hoping to get out of your internship this summer?

I want to learn about what it means to be a SRE and get to use some cool tech as well! I’ve never worked in the financial industry before so I am really excited to see what it’s like to be an engineer at Bloomberg! Apart from working on my project, I hope to make some friends and attend as many activities as possible. Overall, I just want to make the most of my internship this summer.