This summer I was an intern at Cognite, a firm that is trying to make digitalize the industrial world. It was great and I have had a great time! I will try to summarize my two months into this post.
I was employed as a Software Engineer Intern and I worked on a lot of exciting stuff, both in front-end but also alot with cloud functions, backend and some front end infrastructure. It was great and I really liked the ability to switch between tasks, as long as the context switching would not be too big. As an intern, we had a onboarding period where we learnt more about how the company was like, how to navigate around and other practical stuff.
They also hosted social events, all sorts of! Everything from soccer on fridays, to kayaking together. This kind of culture is something I have not experienced before and in the start I was really shocked that this was how working in tech should be, and they were entirely right about providing the most supportive and kind environment for me to explore and be in. If someone from Cognite reads this, that was really important to me personally.
As a SWE intern, I was handed tasks given to regular Engineers and I was super happy for having the challenge of a regular employee. That is the only way you grow. When I reached out to my manager asking to work on a collaboration with NASA Goddard, in order for Cognite to use the timeseries data they have to improve our solutions, my manager was really positive. For me, having that freedom means a lot, because you learn yourself and you provide value for others as well as the firm itself, a “win-win” situation.
In general, Cognite is flexible and is an understandable, inclusive employer (and I am not getting paid to write these words). By that, they understand that an employee is effective some parts of the day and some other not so. What that meant, was that they understood that you needed to take a step back to be more productive, and that social life as well as personal health was important to them in order for them to make me succeed, which I think was one an eye-opener for me as well.
This is what tech companies should be like and I was lucky to have a chance there working alongside some mega smart (and driven!!) people. If you consider to work in Norway, already working here or want to work for an employer that actually cares, I would consider Cognite.
All in all, a successful internship, getting new friends, producing code and having fun. Thanks to everyone being apart of that, much appreciated. If you have questions about how it was there, feel free to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide some thoughts!