Coming in as an IBM intern, I never thought I would be in a position where I could create a meaningful and lasting positive impact on millions of our learners. But little did I know…
I still remember during the first month of my internship, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of imposter syndrome (I talk more about that in the video I made last year: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-most-your-internship-advice-new-beginnings-rami-maalouf)
What helped me overcome it was realizing the level of trust my mentors like Bradley Steinfeld and James Reeve, and managers like Antonio Cangiano and Leon Katsnelson, had in me.
Just 2 months in, I was chosen to tackle a huge codebase refactor(from jQuery with JavaScript to React with TypeScript) while simultaneously building a new AI service aiming to improve the learning experience of our 7 million learners by leveraging LLMs and a Vector Database (RAG) to offer our learners a personalized teaching assistant that is available 24/7 for all projects on our platform. The AI service is now in the skilled hands of my talented colleague and friend, Oliver Luo, who continues to drive its success.
It only went up from there…
I continued to worked on technologies like Next.js, Nest.js, Prisma, LangChain, Ruby on Rails, Python, and a sprinkle of DevOps stuff to help build and maintain several other large-scale projects during my time at IBM. You can find everything else I worked on during my 16-month internship in the experience section of my LinkedIn page.
As Taylor Swift once said, “It was enchanting to meet you, Cognitive Class”. I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity Antonio Cangiano and Leon Katsnelson have given me and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for them.
If you’d like a sneak peek into a typical day in my life as an intern at IBM, you can check out this video: https://youtu.be/GYXxsKJE-8I
My favorite day at IBM: https://youtu.be/mLRZsYBegQw