Fall 2020 - I started my second internship at Text-Em-All (TEA) in Frisco, TX. The whole internship was virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic. My internship lasted 22 weeks, and it was totally fun. Before interning at TEA, I interned at Copart during summer 2020, which was my first internship in the US. At TEA, I worked as a software engineer intern on the engineering operations (ops) team. My work was mostly related to (but not limited to) back-end development using C#, Node.js (implementing AWS Lambda functions using event handler JS codebase). Besides, I got to work on the front-end side only during my last week of internship, which was also C# related (basically aspx codebase). Overall, I got to learn a lot during my time at TEA.
A little about TEA: it's a mass text messaging and automated calling service provider company. Using the TEA platform, you can send text and voice messages and deliver phone calls to thousands of people with the information you want them to know. TEA makes sure that the information being sent is legit and not a scam, which is why they only deliver messages that are personalized and genuine. The service is easy and safe to use; it's also user-friendly and provides better (and cheaper) pricing plans compared to other services. For more information, please visit the TEA website: https://www.text-em-all.com/.
With me, there was another intern (Imtiaz) on the ops team. He was from UT Arlington, and I was from UT Dallas. He was a CS undergrad student, and I was a CS grad student. Both of us worked together on some interesting projects and became good friends as our internship progressed. On the ops team, there were six people. Two of them (Marsha and Chanelle) took care of HR and management-related work, and the rest of them (Attila, Jason, Sweta) were all technical people, including my supervisor (Jay), who is extremely smart and a jack of all trades. All of them were phenomenal with a positive attitude towards their work.
Talking more about my work experience, I usually took guidance from Attila, who is a gem when it comes to coding and debugging. A maestro, silent but deadly (his nickname says it all). I still remember how I would bug him in the middle of the day with my trivial questions, but he never got annoyed with them and always helped me with the best of his knowledge. Apart from Attila, I also took help from Jason and Sweta, who are smart and bright people. They always guided me in the right direction. I liked the way Jason used to ask me questions one by one when I would get stuck on some error. I liked his strategy to teach beginners how to troubleshoot anything with the right approach. Jay was my mentor, and he used to assign me tasks and would take updates from me daily in the morning standup. And finally Sweta, who was a UTD alumnus, hence I got to interact with her on a frequent basis and could relate to things.
At TEA, we used to have monthly TEA talks where four to six people would hop on a video call and get to know each other by asking questions from a variety of topics. The categories were light, medium, fun, deep, and racial, and there were interesting questions that one could ask/answer. I attended five TEA talks, every time with different people, therefore I got to interact with a whole lot of them. TEA was a small company; there were in total around 40 employees, so it was easy to reach out to anyone and talk to them about basically anything. Apart from that, we also used to have a weekly scoreboard meeting (every Wednesday afternoon) where all TEA employees would join a Zoom call and discuss key metrics and performance parameters. Lunch was also provided by TEA (which was quite generous of them). I can't emphasize enough how the company cares for its employees and would do anything for their wellbeing. Honestly, I never felt like I was an intern there; I always felt like I was a full-time employee like any other person.
The engineering team also had a monthly meeting where every engineer would give personal updates on what they had been up to in the last month and if there was anything worthwhile to share with others. After that, Hai would give his update and share any thoughts on engineering team progress. Ideas related to engineering were also discussed in that meeting. Sometimes, Hai would also ask an interesting question (for example, when was the last time you went to a restaurant) that everybody had to answer.
Moreover, I was fortunate enough to get this opportunity to work at TEA as an intern, and I'm grateful to Hai and Brad (founders of TEA) for choosing me among the bunch of candidates who applied for the position. Actually, TEA came to UTD at the career fair in spring 2020. I handed over my resume to the focal person, who referred me, and my interview process started. Initially, my resume got screened, and then I got a coding assessment that I cleared. After that, I had a final interview with Hai (VP of Engineering). I had a 30-minute call with Hai, and he liked me, so I knew I would make it to the final cut. Then, a couple of weeks after the interview, I got the offer that I accepted without giving it a second thought because I had already heard great things about the company and its culture.
During the last week, the engineering ops team met at a restaurant (Chuy's) for the farewell lunch of me and Imtiaz. It was a good gathering since we were all meeting for the first time (because of the pandemic), and it felt a little strange to meet the team only during the last week of my internship. I hadn't been to Chuy's before but totally loved their food. On the last day of my internship, I went to the office and spent the second half of the day there. It was my first as well as last day working from the office as a TEA intern, which was bittersweet. Marsha captured my picture and posted it on the famous wall where all employees who ever worked/interned with TEA had their pictures posted. I was glad to see my face on that fabulous wall. I also took pictures with Imtiaz and Marsha for the memory. Marsha was so supportive throughout my internship; she provided me a smooth onboarding and offboarding experience. I would like to thank her for all her support.
To sum up, I'd say that interning at TEA was the best internship experience I've ever had (hands down). The people, culture, work ethics—all 10/10. It taught me so many things that I didn't know of. I learned not only technical skills but also got to sharpen my people skills (improved my verbal and communication skills). I haven't worked at many companies, but whatever companies I have worked at, my experience hasn't been better than my experience at TEA. To end this blog, I would mention that if companies like TEA exist in this world, then this world could become a better place for all where we care for each other and appreciate our differences. Also, I would like to thank everyone at TEA for providing me an amazing virtual internship experience which I wouldn't have had otherwise. All of y'all are doing an amazing job and creating a huge impact. God bless you all, and I'll see you soon.
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