Beyond the logistics, we\u2019re betting you\u2019d like to know more about what it\u2019s really<\/i> like to be an intern here. What leads folks like you to apply, and what actually happens when you arrive? To get the real story, we asked three of our current interns to share more about their work, and how things are playing out for them this summer.<\/p>\n
Making an impact<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Julia Cambre<\/b><\/a> is a PhD student in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University\u2019s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, with a focus on studying voice. She was attracted by the foundational work<\/a> Mozilla is doing in this emerging area, and got some extra encouragement to apply from a colleague at CMU, Jessica Colnago<\/a>, who was an intern at Mozilla last summer. Since completing her internship last year, Jessica has continued to collaborate with Mozilla. \u201cThis summer feels like the start of an even longer-term collaboration relationship\u201d<\/i>, Julia says.<\/p>\n For Abdoulaye Oumar Ly<\/b><\/a>,<\/b> an intern this summer on Firefox\u2019s front-end development team in our Toronto office, applying for an internship \u201cwas a natural choice.\u201d Abdoulaye had long been interested in Mozilla products and got his feet wet as an open source contributor to the Firefox Focus<\/a> mobile app. \u201cThe specific and helpful feedback I got as a contributor made me realize that people here are very interested in helping you learn,\u201d he says. So he did more, going on<\/a> to work with Mozilla as part of Google\u2019s Summer of Code (GSOC) program. At GSOC, Abdoulaye specifically focused on adding multi-select functionality to the tab bar in Firefox Desktop \u2014 effectively making changes in the heart of one of the most complicated (and most important) parts of the Firefox UI.<\/p>\n And even then, Abdoulaye wanted more. \u201cI wanted to know more about the browser itself \u2014 its architecture, how C++ and JavaScript code work together. I was also curious how such a distributed company like Mozilla works.\u201d (Mozilla has ten offices around the world, and nearly half of us work remotely<\/a> from our homes or a coworking space). Now Abdoulaye\u2019s back as a full-time intern, working on a project to make site isolation work with Firefox, which supports better security and performance.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/i>I\u2019m surprised at how down-to-earth and helpful people are at Mozilla. You feel like you\u2019re more than an intern. While many other companies just have interns submit patches, I can also <\/i>review<\/i><\/b> patches at Mozilla,\u201d<\/i> says Abdoulaye.<\/p>\n Julia has had a similar experience; one of her memorable moments this summer happened a few weeks ago when she had the chance to do a live demo of a new voice prototype in front of the entire company. \u201cIt was terrifying and also super thrilling,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI\u2019d already demo-ed this to a few people, but to feel the reaction from 1,000 people and see their enthusiasm for this experimental stuff we are working on was just awesome.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Maliha Islam<\/b><\/a> experienced a similar kind of impact during her summer internship in Toronto. Her peers at her previous internship clued her into Mozilla and she was intrigued by Mozilla\u2019s history as a pioneer of the web and was inspired to contribute to open source.<\/p>\n Maliha assumed that most of her four-month internship would be spent fixing a bunch of bugs. But she also hoped to work on a feature that Firefox would ship first, before other browsers, and had an idea for adding a visual impairment simulation to developer tools. Her manager really liked her proposal, and now she\u2019s demoing the feature on one of the UK\u2019s largest ticketing websites, which unwittingly excluded<\/a> viewers by using color-coded dots to display ticket prices.<\/p>\n Maliha shepherded a new feature that allows developers to visualize color restrictions while they code<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that by letting developers see their websites through the lens of someone with color blindness, this feature will allow them to design their websites to be more inclusive,\u201d Maliha says. \u201cAlso, Firefox will be the first browser to have this feature!\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n Like Julia and Abdoulaye, Maliha felt similarly empowered to contribute. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more collaboration <\/i>\u2014 <\/i>not only between engineers but also product managers and designers,\u201d <\/i>Maliha says. \u201cEveryone\u2019s opinion is taken into account for the final product. It\u2019s been really interesting to see how people consider something from different angles.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur interns are fully integrated into our teams and, on the accessibility team, we’re constantly seeking innovative ways to improve the connected lives of people with disabilities. So when Maliha pitched the idea of adding visual impairment simulation to Firefox, we jumped at the opportunity!”<\/i> says her manager Jamie Teh on Firefox\u2019s Accessibility team.<\/p>\n Face-to-face<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n A big opportunity for our summer interns is the chance to travel to our bi-annual All Hands<\/a> events, where staff, interns and the broader Mozilla community work together, face-to-face, over the course of a week. It\u2019s there that interns like Abdoulaye can meet people like Jared Wein<\/a> in real life, after collaborating together online for over a year but never meeting in person. It\u2019s also where Maliha got to meet and watch her Australia-based manager \u2014 one of two members on her team who were born blind \u2014 code.<\/p>\n Some of our 2019 interns at our Whistler All Hands (June 2019)<\/i><\/p>\n Our 2019 All Hands was also where Julia met Ian Bicking<\/a>, who swung by to help her team brainstorm on a prototype. When he began to review her code, Julia became curious about his background. A quick internet search revealed that the engineer sitting beside her and reviewing her code was the original author of two Python packages, Pip<\/a> and Virtualenv<\/a>.<\/p>\n Onward<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n At the end of the internship, though, it\u2019s about what\u2019s learned and how it can be used moving forward. Julia expects the work she did this summer to serve her for the long-run. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve grown tremendously as a developer and voice researcher in my time here,\u201d she says. \u201cI hope to continue as a contributor after my internship because I\u2019m really excited to see where my project goes from here, and I want to stay involved. I also feel like working for Mozilla has made me more passionate about privacy, security and open source innovation. These values are things I plan to carry forward in my work and career.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n For Maliha and Abdoulaye, the skills they\u2019ve learned are both technical and relational. \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot of technical skills like improved software development practices, but for me personally, the soft skills are a bigger take-away from this summer,\u201d <\/i>Maliha says. \u201cI get nervous talking to people<\/i>. But here, everyone\u2019s approachable and helpful, so it\u2019s getting easier for me to speak with people as well as learn from them.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Abdoulaye says: \u201c<\/i><\/b>I am more detail-oriented, better able to follow software development best practices and I\u2019ve also gained a lot of soft skills. I think I\u2019m getting better at communicating out my issues and ideas. These things will always be helpful in my career.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Thinking of applying? Our intern\u2019s advice is to set a goal for your internship, and, don\u2019t be intimidated if you get assigned something outside your comfort zone. \u201cMozillians are very helpful, and will help you reach the goals you set for yourself,” <\/i>Maliha says. \u201cHave a plan for your internship and you\u2019ll get the help you need to achieve them.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/files\/2019\/08\/Aug-01-2019-20-49-36.gif\")
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