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Aug 13 2024

Actian’s Interns Contribute Across All Areas of the Business

As we wrap up our internship season, I want to reflect on the brilliance of this program. It’s been a great experience so far and like the other interns, I’m impressed with how much I’m learning and the opportunities to actively contribute to the business. From collaborating on real-world projects to brainstorming innovative solutions, our intern team is making tangible impacts that help drive the company forward.

Since I came on board in June, my first three impressions are what I refer to as “The Three Cs.” They consist of community, culture, and capstone projects. I am incredibly grateful that these foundational pillars are integral to the distinctive character of the program. Actian’s internship is truly structured to move its participants from interns to capable, confident employees who will be ready for the next stage of our careers.

Experiencing a Sense of Community

Given the remote nature of my internship—I’m based in Illinois—I was initially unsure how I would be able to connect with my fellow interns and Actian employees. To my relief, when we attended the in-person orientation at the Round Rock Center of Excellence in Texas, it became abundantly clear that despite the mostly remote work environment, Actian cultivates a supportive community of employees who not only care for the success of the company, but for one another, regardless of where we’re working.

It was extremely encouraging to have such incredible support from so many individuals within the company. Every employee with whom I’ve interacted has invited me to connect with them.

Without exception, they genuinely want to see us succeed and have provided us with the individual investment, tools, and resources to do so. This strong sense of community fosters collaboration and ensures that we all thrive together. As an intern, I feel like I’m part of a team that’s making a difference in the company.

Participating in a Culture Worth Celebrating

Every Actian employee I’ve spoken to has genuine praise for the company’s incredible people and culture. Given this fact, it is no surprise that this positive culture extends to interns as well. During our in-person orientation, interns were able to meet each other face-to-face and engage in activities that allowed us to connect with one another.

This allowed us to get to know each other on a personal and a professional level. Whether it was the group dinners or the cohort favorite “GameOn! ATX” competition—for which I would like to extend a humble apology and thanks to my team’s opponents for continuing to be gracious following their loss!—we were able to share some incredibly fun memories.

Although we have all returned to our various work environments, including remote locations, thanks to the brilliant design of Employee Experience leaders Rae Coffman and Sara Lou, we are fortunate to have a continuing calendar of upcoming fun events. This allows us to interact and share, regardless of where we’re located or what team we’re working with at Actian.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the mini campfire. For this annual Actian intern tradition, each of us is sent supplies to build a candle campfire in their home. The supplies are complete with ingredients to build s’mores, which we’ll eat while we share scary stories with each other. Eek!

This is one example of how the recognizable culture that Actian cultivates globally is scaled to the internship program. The culture ensures that each intern feels seen, supported, and connected throughout the entirety of our experience with Actian.

Delivering Powerful Results With Capstone Projects

There tends to be a cliché that an intern’s only tasks are those that are miniscule to the company. You know, making copies or running errands. That’s certainly not the case here. No Actian intern will ever find themselves simply fetching their manager a cup of coffee. Instead, we are all given a unique opportunity to learn and showcase our hard work.

Each intern is assigned a capstone project at the beginning of our 12 weeks. We work on it, collaborate with others in the company, and ultimately deliver a structured, substantive outcome at the completion of the internship.

We are each given a team consisting of our manager and a buddy who create a reliable balance of support and autonomy as we work toward our project—honing our skills while adding value to the organization. Although I do make a mean cup of coffee, I am more excited about the project management skills and transferable, real-world experiences these capstone projects afford each one of us.

Our Unique Internship Opportunities Extend Globally

The brilliance of our internship program is not limited to inside the U.S. borders. Actian has an incredible cohort of interns working in Germany as well—and they hail from various parts of the globe. One difference between the U.S. and the German program is that those interning in Germany have the ability to be hired at any time of the year. Actian provides these interns with incredible opportunities that include an internship, academic thesis supervision, or a part-time position.

In the last year alone, the Actian office in Germany has supervised 11 students. This includes three academic thesis students and one who will be joining Actian full time this fall. It’s exciting for everyone involved in the program!

Coming from all levels of education and diverse experiences, these interns work on the Actian Vector team under the leadership of Steffen Kläbe and Thomas Schweser to contribute to the success of one of the industry’s fastest analytical database management systems. These interns start their program by completing an extensive onboarding experience that introduces them to the codebase and explains how to successfully optimize it.

Following the completion of these first one to two weeks, interns are assigned a task designed to provide hands-on experience with the codebase system. This task usually entails solving a problem or something similar that delivers actual business value, such as fixing a bug in the code. The initial task allows interns to not only advance their skillset but also gain the confidence needed to move into their selected projects.

Following this task comes the fun part! Interns choose a project that aligns with their interests. So far this year, there have been 17 projects that directly influence the current usage and future innovation of our Vector database. These projects range from “Memory Loading” to “Cloud Usage” to “Data Compression.”

The impact that these interns and projects have on the company is not only recognizably impressive but also incredibly powerful. Their dedication and innovation that they bring to the company every day continues to demonstrate a significant impact that advances our products and our business.

Making a Lasting Impression

Overall, the brilliance of the Actian internship program continues to reveal itself the more I experience it. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be here. I am certain that this experience will be one I carry on far longer than my 12 weeks here. Thank you to everyone who makes it possible!

The post Actian’s Interns Contribute Across All Areas of the Business appeared first on Actian.

National Intern Day: A Look at the Actian Summer Internship Experience

Happy National Intern Day!

As a returning intern who has spent two memorable summers at Actian, I am excited to share what sets Actian apart and how their internship program is truly exceptional.

One aspect of the program I absolutely adore is the in-person orientation. Unlike many remote companies, Actian offers a unique opportunity for interns to come together at the Center of Excellence office in Round Rock, Texas.

Trust me when I say this is one of the highlights of the summer! Not only do you get to bond with fellow interns and spend quality time with your manager and buddy, but you also get to explore Texas together and engage in exciting activities. A personal favorite of mine was the gameshow-style intern competition at GameOn! ATX. Despite my team losing for the second year in a row, we gave it our all, making it an exciting and fun event.

While some worry that you forfeit feelings of community when working remotely, that is never a problem at Actian. Laughter and jokes are a regular part of our meetings, and it’s normal to see funny GIFs in our team chats. Whether it’s work anniversaries or birthdays, we celebrate the little things together. Last summer, the Actian team went above and beyond by surprising me with an edible arrangement and cupcakes to celebrate my birthday. These gestures truly exemplify the caring and supportive atmosphere within the company.

I must also mention the remarkable Marketing team, not only because I am a marketing intern, but because the people at Actian are genuinely one of a kind. You cannot find a more collaborative, enthusiastic, and supportive group. Despite my short tenure as a summer intern, I even have my own nickname (the Sparkler) within the marketing team! Across all departments, Actian employees are eager to connect with you, help you learn, and foster your professional growth.

Actian truly makes interns feel valued and appreciated, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be here another summer. I will carry the memories, experiences, and relationships I’ve built at Actian long after my internship ends!

-Madeline Heath – Demand Generation Marketing Intern

Returning intern, Madeline, is pursuing majors in Marketing and International Business at Indiana University Bloomington’s Kelley School of Business. At Actian, she assists the marketing team with various projects but is primarily focused on the social gamification of the employee advocacy platform to leverage employee networks and achieve brand visibility and thought leadership. She cannot say enough about the people and culture at Actian!

Meet more of our 2023 Summer Interns:

Savannah Bruggeman – Conversion Rate Optimization Marketing Intern

Savannah is a recent graduate of Loyola University Chicago where she majored in in Statistics and Public Relations. At Actian, she develops and executes A/B, Multivariate, and continuous optimization tests, takes winning ideas to market and integrates them into the Actian website! Her favorite part of the internship is applying skills she learned in the classroom and learning new skills!

Caitlin Fuschetto – Cloud Operations Analyst Intern

Caitlin studies Information Systems at Fordham University. As a Cloud Operations Analyst intern, she works alongside her project manager to ensure efficiency of the Cloud Ops team. She enjoys collaborating with her buddy/manager on her Capstone project and the weekly intern events!

Ian Loo – DataConnect Engineering Intern

Ian is majoring computer science at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. At Actian, he carries out specific tasks for the DataConnect team through investigation, brainstorming, and implementation. His favorite part of his internship is learning new technologies and industry practices!

Alexa Cole – DevOps Intern

Alexa is majoring in computer engineering at the University of Florida. As the Actian DevOps intern, she works to perform migration from Twiki to Confluence. She has loved learning about what DevOps is truly about!

Ethan Avila – Cloud Security Engineer Intern

Ethan is majoring in Technology Management at Texas A&M University. At Actian, Ethan is learning how to build, maintain, and enhance protection and detection on cloud-based infrastructure. He is grateful for how much he has been able to learn in just a short time!

Henry McKinney – Cloud Operations Analyst Intern

Returning intern, Henry, is a recent graduate of Nazareth University where he majored in psychology and triple-minored in math, analytics, and finance. As a member of the Customer Cloud Operations team, Henry utilizes Kubernetes to manage cloud native applications. He has loved learning about Kubernetes this summer!
 

Sayali Dalvi – DataConnect Engineering Intern

Sayali is majoring in Information Systems at Northeastern University. As Actian’s DataCloud Engineering, she is working to build new features for the Integration of Actian’s flagship product, Avalanche. She looks forward to the weekly intern events and weekly 1:1 meeting with the employee experience team! She really appreciates the personalized guidance and feedback!

Phuong Tran – Employee Experience Intern

Phuong is pursuing a master’s in industrial and organizational Psychology at the University of Central Florida. As an Employee Experience Intern, her primary responsibility entails fostering global corporate volunteering amongst Actian employees by establishing a corporate volunteering program that reflects Actian’s values of corporate social responsibility (CSR). She loves the weekly intern events and enjoys expanding her knowledge of the industry through real-world application!

Gabriela Flores Diaz – Online Media Review and ESG Intern

Gabriela is double majoring in marketing and communication at the Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business. In her current role, she is developing a new online media review process and implementing an ESG marketing strategy.
She has loved connecting with fellow interns and members of the Actian team, especially during in person orientation! The collaboration with professionals from various functions at Actian has inspired her with valuable insights and diverse perspectives.

Matthew Jackson – Zen Engineering Intern

Returning intern, Matthew Jackson is majoring in Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. As the Zen Engineering intern, Matthew works to create a standalone utility application to assist developers with integrating Zen and working out a sample to demonstrate a possible Zen use case. He loves learning more about the industry through hands-on applications and working with incredible people!

Skylar Ng – Employee Experience Intern

Skylar is majoring in Psychology at Michigan State University. As an Employee Experience Intern, he primarily focuses on helping Actian on its path to sustainability through research and policy implementation. He loves connecting with other interns and employees across Actian and gaining insight into their roles and responsibilities.

Aditi Purandare – Sustainability Engineering Intern

Aditi is majoring in Economics and Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College. As a Sustainability intern, she researches and collaborates with the engineering team to ensure Actian’s software is environmentally friendly and works to solidify Actian’s ESG mission! She has loved getting to and working with her fellow interns!

Sahithi Eslavath – Software Engineering Intern

Sahithi is majoring in Data Science at Greenwich University. As an Actian Software Engineering Intern, she works to establish the connection from DBT to Ingres Avalanche. During her time at Actian, she has loved developing the new adapter

Josh Reyes – Financial Planning & Analysis Intern

Returning intern, Josh, is majoring in Finance at the University of San Francisco. As Actian’s Financial Planning & Analysis intern, he creates dashboards to track finances and company metrics. He loves the Actian intern program and really enjoys working with the finance team, learning about the technology industry, and bonding with his fellow interns!

The post National Intern Day: A Look at the Actian Summer Internship Experience appeared first on Actian.

A Look Inside the Actian Internship Program

The Actian internship program offers an engaging, unique, and educational opportunity for college students to learn, expand their skill sets, and make connections in the data analytics industry. The program started in 2020, but is already proving to be successful for dozens of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students, as well as students in other disciplines such as marketing, human resources, and finance.

The 12-week program supports up-and-coming professionals while giving Actian staff the chance to interact with students who may be a good fit to work at the company after graduating.

Rae Coffman-Bueb, Director of Employee Experience for Actian, is proud of the program’s success. “Interns are the future,” they noted. “In order for us to support that, we bring in and shepherd new talent. Giving them experience in a real-world setting is incredibly important not only for interns, but also for us as an organization.”

A Learning Experience That’s Truly Unique

Actian’s internship program lets students work on actual projects, which are then shared across the company. Projects range from program implementations to fixing bugs to conducting research.

“We have a really unique structure to our internship program,” Coffman explains. “Many organizations, when they bring on interns, just give them random, day-to-day activities that an employee in that role would have. But our internship program is project-based, so each intern is brought onto a large-scale project that they work on over the course of 12 weeks.”

The hands-on work lets interns experience what real-world jobs actually entail, and the learning is mutually beneficial. While the interns learn from Actian employees, the company learns about the latest technology and business approaches taught in colleges.

“From an intern’s perspective, their project is a really great thing to showcase on a resume because they can say, ‘I was able to accomplish this giant project in 12 weeks,’” Coffman said. “And as an organization, we have the benefit of being able to learn from the students who are coming in with cutting-edge technology and information and are able to apply that to our problems and programs. That’s a huge benefit overall.”

Building Skills and Confidence

“One thing across the board that students gain is at the end of the 12 weeks, they all present in our internship showcase. It’s a way for them to show the whole company the project they worked on,” Coffman said. “One of the things that Sara and I are both passionate about is managing neurodiversity. We use a lot of those principles and apply them to presentations and public speaking.”

Coffman-Bueb and Sara Lou, Employee Experience Specialist for Actian, work with interns to help them prepare for their presentations. This includes one-on-one coaching sessions to build their skills and confidence.

Actian employees at all levels of the organization are always impressed by the work the interns do, especially their presentations.

“Every year, the entire executive team and the whole company say they want to expand the program,” Coffman notes. “We hear, ‘We need more interns!’ People really look forward to the presentations and are excited about them.”

The Path from Intern to Highly Productive Employee

Mollie Kendall is a shining example of how the internship program benefits both participants and Actian. She worked as an intern during the summer of 2021. Her manager was Kimmah Lewis, Senior Director, Digital and Demand Generation.

“During my internship, I dabbled in a lot of areas inside of demand generation, like digital, SEO, and content creation and management. I was able to sit in on a lot of meetings and learn what each entails,” she said. “I liked that I got that peek into each and every part of demand gen. That’s not something you get in school. Classes don’t go into the level of detail I experienced as an intern. Learning on the job and hands-on work is so valuable and prepares you for what comes after graduation.”

Kendall, who had 15 years of experience running her own photography business, liked the experience so much that after the internship ended, she continued to work part-time at Actian while in college. After graduating from Texas State University in San Marcos in December 2021, she accepted a full-time offer and is now Actian’s Demand Generation Specialist. She also handles the company’s social media and content management.

Other former interns are also now working at Actian. This includes three people who participated in last summer’s program and recently accepted full-time offers.

Learning, Connecting, and Engaging

“Every intern has a buddy who teaches them the ropes and day-to-day activities and is their dedicated point of contact for all questions big and small,” Coffman said. “They also have a manager who is very involved and acts as a mentor, and Sara and I meet with the students every week. We help bridge the gap between managers, buddies, and students. We make sure everything is on track. If there are any deviations, we’re able to course correct and guide them back.”

Everyone involved in the program is dedicated to setting up the interns for success and making sure what’s asked of them is achievable. This support made a big impact on Kendall.

“Working with Kimmah Lewis was what impressed me the most,” Kendall said. “I never thought I would go into tech and go into social media, but Kimmah was great. I learned so much, and I had fun doing it. It was great to be part of the program.”

She is now working with an intern as part of her job. “I mentored an intern last year and will do so again this summer,” she said. “I want to help her learn and build her skill set. It was invaluable what Kimmah did for me, and I can give interns that perspective.”

One of the highlights for Kendall and other interns is the social aspect. For example, interns typically work remotely, so Actian sent each intern a package to make s’mores. Then in a group event, the interns got together virtually, made s’mores, and told ghost stories.

“The connections through games and activities really completed the experience for me,” Kendall said.

Career Opportunities at Actian

Interested in joining an exciting team? Actian is hiring. See our openings.

Related resources you may find useful:

Introducing Our 2022 Interns!

The post A Look Inside the Actian Internship Program appeared first on Actian.

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