My Internship Experience at HackerRank

I interned at HackerRank as an SDE this winter and being there I realized that this has been something very special and I will always hold onto this experience as a cherishable memory. Hence, I am writing this blog to take you all through my journey at HackerRank.

Getting into HackerRank

Back in October 2023, I came across a LinkedIn post with the tagline "The most awaited internship program is here," which immediately caught my attention 👀. I went through the past internship blogs attached to the Job description, where people shared their experience, and learnings they had at hackerrank, which further fueled my excitement to apply for this position.

(PS: one of the main motivation to write this blog 😉)

After applying for the job, I received a test link to solve a coding problem. The problem was quite basic, and I managed to solve it in a short amount of time.

After around 10 days, I received an email from HackerRank notifying me that I had an interview scheduled with the CTO and co-founder, Hari. I had read in past internship blogs that Hari personally reviews each resume submitted for the intern position and conducts the technical interviews himself, which really excited me. My interview with Hari went very well, as I had the opportunity to showcase my projects and the open-source contributions I have made.

My second technical interview was scheduled with Akshay, Senior Director of Engineering at HackerRank, where I had the chance to discuss my past internship experience and the tools and technologies I have worked with. The core requirements for SDE interns at HackerRank are development skills. Both of the technical interviews were truly based on my projects and development skills.

After a week, I had a call scheduled with Vaasavi, aka the super boss. She informed me that I had been selected for the SDE intern position 🎉 and also explained about the perks at HackerRank.

The Internship

As this internship is onsite, I was ready to move to Bangalore for the next 6 months to start my internship at HackerRank. On the first day, I met my awesome co-interns. We had orientation and onboarding sessions, followed by an office tour led by Komal. Then we set up our laptops with help from Karthik and Mohith. The First day was amazing!!!

We had weekly catch-ups with Hari, where we discussed the we worked on during the week, especially the code we pushed to production and the value it added to HackerRank. There was also a mandatory negative feedback session where we had to suggest ways to improve HackerRank.

The best part of our internship is that it is onsite, unlike other batches. We come to the office daily, had lot of fun and have flexibility to meet many engineers and leaders at HackerRank. We used to attend this LabsReads session led by Shloka inspired by Cubbon Reads. Also,Hari and Vaasavi used to take us interns on treks/hikes ⛰️.

We have a bet with Hari to build an Intern website in a given time. Unfortunately we lost to him 🫤. Checkout our interns website here.

Work and Ownership

During my 6-month internship, I had a chance to work on both frontend and backend I worked on various features and bug fixes. These tasks helped me learn new technical concepts and the importance of extreme ownership. The best part of interning at HackerRank is that you get an equal opportunity to share your ideas and ask questions in team meetings. This inclusive environment fosters collaboration and innovation, allowing interns to contribute meaningfully to projects and feel valued as part of the team. We always felt free to reach out to anyone in the company.

In conclusion, It was an amazing 6 months of internship experience and I am greatful for it, where I learned a lot of new things, all thanks to Hari, my manager Ankur Kakroo, and amazing teammates, and my fellow interns. I have joined HackerRank as Software Development Engineer 🎉.