What is it REALLY Like Interning at BuzzFeed?
The 2019 Tech Interns give an inside look into working at BuzzFeed!
BuzzFeed — one of the biggest digital media companies out there. Our videos are lit, the quizzes are addictingly fun, so surely it must be the dream place to intern at. Right?!
What did the 2019 BuzzFeed Tech Interns think?
Editor’s Note: Responses have been edited for clarity.
Kaushik Ravikumar — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
What projects have you been working on?
I worked on Distribution Tools, a team in BuzzFeed Tech dedicated to building software to streamline the process of distributing content across various outlets across the Internet: ranging from BuzzFeed’s owned and operated platforms to its numerous social media channels. My specific project was to build a service that would gather content that is currently trending on BuzzFeed and make recommendations to social curators to post them on various social media platforms. It also marked the recommendations as trending, so social curators could prioritize posting these.
What was a highlight of your internship?
The NYC Summer Tech Outing at the Brooklyn Barge! We had a beautiful view of Manhattan and it was great to meet the interns from other offices whom I had only seen before on video calls. Had a great time hanging out with the rest of BuzzFeed Tech 😄
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
One of the biggest obstacles I faced in my project was getting my service to send recommendation messages that successfully went through the Pipeline Infrastructure. This was not always easy, because there were a lot of services that I had to get familiar with and sometimes even tweak the code for in order to make sure that my service would work alongside the existing infrastructure.
Tell us about something you learned!
I think I’ve learned a lot about what it means to work on a team. I’ve also gained a greater understanding of the types of practices a tech company can engage in in order to make sure their code can be written, tested, and deployed in the most efficient way possible. I’ve gained more experience in writing backend software, React, Python, DataDog, Software Integration Testing, and honestly, the list would keep going on, so I’ll cut it off there lol.
Abram Handler — Data Science Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
Years ago, I saw a good Medium post from Gilad Lotan analyzing partisanship around Israel and Palestine on Twitter. When I saw a job listing for a BuzzFeed data science internship (on Gilad’s team), I decided to apply!
What projects have you been working on?
I have been working on two projects at BuzzFeed. The first project is focused on BuzzFeed’s comment analysis tools, which use data science techniques to help the organization better understand what users are posting on the site. For instance, BuzzFeed might want to understand if a user is posting a personal story in the comments section. Identifying such comments could give the editorial team ideas for a full BuzzFeed post.
I’ve also been working on a second project that is focused on detecting nicknames in BuzzFeed comments. For example, when users post about Ariana Grande they don’t always use her formal name; they might use the name “Ari” or “Princess of Pop”. I am working on a project that tries to detect such nicknames using computer science tools so that BuzzFeed can better understand what our community is saying about particular celebrities.
What was a highlight of your internship?
During the year, I’m a graduate student in a research lab, studying a subfield of computer science that is connected to linguistics. It has been really interesting for me to see how the skills and perspectives I have learned from the research world both apply and do not apply in a more practical setting. For example, computer science research often emphasizes novelty: the focus is on developing new methods or applying existing tools in new domains. In a practical setting, such novelty can provide technical advantages, but new methods also incur much higher maintenance and documentation costs.
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
Bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical data science.
Tell us about something you learned!
Lots of hands-on experience with real-world natural language processing.
Emily Lobel — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I’m a double major in computer science and theatre, so writing code to bring some sort of entertainment to the world has always been a dream of mine. I’m also a fellow with hackNY, so when we began the matching process, I really wanted to come work at BuzzFeed! I feel so lucky to be here.
What projects have you been working on?
I’m building an internal tool with John, another intern on the Site Team, to help editors change the navigation bar on the site without having to ask Tech to do it for them. I’ve been working on the front-end portion of the tool in React, which has been awesome.
What are some of the best parts of working at BuzzFeed?
The best parts of BuzzFeed for me have definitely been working with my awesome manager and team, getting to know the other interns, and learning a ton! This is my first software engineering internship (I’ve previously only worked with Girls Who Code), so I kind of started at level zero. It was really tough at first, but it’s awesome to be able to really see how far I’ve come since.
What are some things you’ve learned?
I’ve learned so much! Lots about software engineering, for sure, but I’ve also had such great mentorship from my manager, team, and really everyone I’ve met. I’ve also made great friends in the other interns!
Arushi Bandi — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I wanted to work for a company that wasn’t just a tech company. I’m also super interested in how technology shapes Internet culture and humans in today’s world, so BuzzFeed was an obvious choice.
Were you nervous about your first day?
On the first day, we had to take a picture to sign in as a visitor, and I wasn’t tall enough to get my entire head in the picture and I thought I was going to get a picture of my forehead on my badge for the whole summer!
What was a memorable experience you had?
BuzzFeed flew out my whole team from all the offices for a week-long planning meeting and as a bonding exercise, we went to Spyscape and made burgers on my manager’s rooftop! I will definitely miss my team the most when I leave! The people I work with are so inspiring, smart and just straight-up cool. They have made me feel so welcome for the summer.
What projects have you been working on?
I’m working on a project that supports the continuous delivery of configuration files that are edited often. Currently, only core-infra has access to deploy, so this will reduce interruptions in their workflow.
Tell us about something you learned!
So much! It’s been an amazing experience to see how the back-end of the site runs, and how thoughtful everyone on infra is of the developer experience and codebase as a whole! I’ve been able to sit in on meetings where the infra team talks about how to create a culture and system where developers are always innovating which has been a super valuable experience.
Emily Ji — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I’ve always been interested in interdisciplinary fields that involve computer science! Computer science is so powerful, and it’s exciting to see how my programming skills can help solve problems in other industries. I applied to BuzzFeed because it’s a digital media company, so I knew that I could potentially meet and work with people in tech, journalism, marketing, entertainment, design, and so much more! I was also curious to learn about the different ways that software engineering helps a digital media company since digital media is something that I did not know much about prior to my Internship.
What was a highlight of your internship?
BuzzFeed has an ERG (Employee Resource Group) for Asian Americans called A*Family, which secured tickets to an early screening of The Farewell with Awkwafina! I really enjoyed seeing a movie with so much Asian representation! 😄 Also, the people on my team from Minneapolis and LA flew to NYC for a few days to hang out and go on a #distro-devs outing! We rode a ferry along the East River and went to a really good pizza restaurant (Keste)!
What projects have you been working on?
This summer, I’m part of the Distribution Tools team. We build internal tools that help social media strategists distribute BuzzFeed content. Our main tool is PubHub, which automatically publishes content to various platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. PubHub has a queue that recommends articles and videos to be published, and my main project this summer is to build a seasonality filter for the recommendation queue. The filter will prevent illogical seasonal content from entering the queue. For example, it would prevent Halloween content from being recommended in July. I also plan on building a small filter that prevents content with not safe for work (NSFW) text from being recommended.
Was there something about how BF Tech works that surprised you?
I was really astonished by the power of Slack in the workplace! I had a lot of questions throughout my internship, but my team has a variety of Slack channels for different topics. I could get quick feedback or suggestions through Slack. My manager was also incredibly helpful. They were very responsive on Slack and willing to meet with me for a code review or pair programming.
What is something you’ve learned?
I now have a newfound appreciation and excitement for software engineering. Since my team builds internal tools for the company, we often meet with our stakeholders (e.g., social media strategists) to discuss their pain points when using PubHub. That way, we can brainstorm ways to solve their problems. I was also able to shadow two social curators while they were using PubHub. One of them was monitoring the Tasty page and kept having to dismiss Thanksgiving turkey recipes. At that moment I thought, “Wow, my project can actually have an impact on someone and make their lives a little easier!”
John Philip — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I grew up watching BuzzFeed videos and interacting with BuzzFeed content, so when I was admitted into hackNY and learned that I could work for BuzzFeed, I jumped at the opportunity! I was also really excited to sharpen my web accessibility and front-end engineering skills on the Site Team here, both of which I’ve been lucky enough to do. Plus, leftovers from the Tasty kitchen didn’t sound so bad either! 😄
What projects have you been working on?
I’m building an internal tool with Emily, another intern on the Site Team, to help editors change the navigation bar on the site themselves. I’ve gotten to work on API development, local storage and caching mechanisms, and loads of other nerdy stuff during this project. After the project is done, I’ll be working on creating some components for BuzzFeed’s internal component library!
What was a highlight of your internship?
We had a happy hour that was entirely Shrek themed, complete with a mural of Shrek and Donkey, green face paint, and multiple bloomin’ onions from Outback Steakhouse. My jaw dropped the second I walked in, and I was floored by everyone’s commitment to making it outrageously awesome. To say that this company has a sense of humor is an understatement.
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
Making sure that I was meeting enough people! It was super easy to keep my head down and work all the time, but I knew that I needed to learn more about the organization. I had to muster up the courage and time to meet a lot of people, but it was seriously worth it! Navigating a huge codebase and trying my best to not break buzzfeed.com were also huge obstacles, but ones that my team helped me immensely with.
Tell us about something you learned!
I learned a lot about React, Node, and JavaScript in general, but the most important thing that I learned is that BuzzFeed Tech will let you take over their Twitter if you ask nicely. 😄 I’ll probably never be verified in my lifetime, but the brief week that I was verified was the most power I’ve felt in my life. My memes have never had more reach, and for that, I am truly thankful.
Xu Zeng — Product Design Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I cannot remember exactly why I applied here. My career goal is very clear and straightforward: product designer. What’s unclear to me is work for what kind of company and product. What BuzzFeed attracts me is that it is a consumer product; its users are mostly young people.
What was a highlight of your internship?
The design critique. The design team has 3 design critique sessions every week, which is very helpful for me. I learned a lot from it.
What projects have you been working on? Obstacles?
The biggest project in my intern period was to redesign the comment moderation tool. It’s a large project with a lot of domain knowledge, like the design for performance, design for machine learning tools, and emotional design. The whole design team gave me a lot of support on this, answering my questions, giving me feedback on my research and design work, etc.
What are some things you’ve learned?
Too many things: receiving and giving feedback; writing documents; communication; domain knowledge of online communities and digital media; design for the application of machine learning; design to improve the efficiency of a tool; design to increase the engagement of an online community; learning to define a problem and solve it!
What will you miss the most?
The culture and people here.
Mohammed Ajao — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I applied to BuzzFeed because I wanted to learn back-end development and saw it has a really great culture. I am primarily a front-end engineer, but backend development and Software Engineering were two skills I wanted to improve on. I am glad I did apply because I have gotten plenty of help from my team on those two fronts.
Any first day nerves…?
I did have first day nerves. This is my first paid engineering internship. I did not have an idea of how I would fit in BuzzFeed’s work culture, the formalities, and the standards I had to hold myself accountable for. I have learned a lot about office environments since then.
What projects have you been working on?
I am on the Data Infrastructure team which controls the flow of data throughout BuzzFeed. My project is an enrichment service that adds geolocation metadata to the data flowing through the pipeline.
What were some fun highlights of your internship?
The Interns went out to eat, and I got to know what they were doing and found anime fans with me. Also, free food on the 16th floor will always be the best. Food is the companion of life and the essence of the soul.
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
I think my inexperience with back-end development. Thankfully, my team is filled with many experienced individuals who criticized my work and helped me write high-quality code.
Tell us about something you learned!
Weight, from all those free snacks! I gained 5 pounds, which is a tiny step towards my goal of 180 pounds. I have also gained social skills, communication skills, and a clearer mindset towards things.
What will you miss the most?
I’ll miss my mentor, the Interns, and the people here. I have received a lot of help and joy.
Tami Olafunmiloye — Software Engineering Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I attended a Prime Time Intern Tech Talk event last summer, and I was really impressed by how well-rounded the employees were. All the engineers had interests that weren’t just engineering, and that resonated heavily with me. It can be suffocating when people talk about tech things 24/7, but the BuzzFeed employees had a really great work-life balance and were comfortable talking about lots of different things.
First day nerves…?
I was a little nervous just because I had never met a BuzzFeed intern before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure if everyone would be decked out in BuzzFeed gear or only speak in text abbreviations. But they were all friendly and welcoming!
What are some highlights from your internship so far?
Meetings are surprisingly informal and everyone, regardless of title, is taken seriously and encouraged to speak up. I was able to give insight on some designs for my project and the other people in the meeting were very supportive.
Also, a perk is we get private concerts every so often which are AMAZING. I saw Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional and my inner emo kid was revived. I actually ran into him after the show and got to talk to him for a little bit. I’ve run into a few of my favorite video producers too! They were so kind and welcoming, it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.
What projects have you been working on?
I’m on the AdsTech team, and my focus right now is front-end development. I’m building a new ad format that plays a video, and then a playlist of BuzzFeed videos. Different advertisers will be able to purchase the format.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced so far?
The biggest obstacle that I faced was working with a large codebase. This is always a challenge when getting situated at a new company, but at BuzzFeed, it was much easier because most people who worked on the code were a few desks away from me. I’d ask for help regularly whenever I was stuck on something that I really didn’t understand, and usually, the person who wrote the code could point me down the right path!
Tell us about something you learned!
One of my goals was learning how to communicate with a big team. I’ve been able to practice this with our weekly standups, and other meetings. We talk often about the projects we work on and solutions that we’re considering. This has pushed me to be as clear and concise as possible when sharing updates about my project and asking for help.
Joane Joseph — Data Science Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
I wanted to experience how Data Science is applied in diverse fields, especially in the online news, media, and entertainment industry.
Were you nervous on your first day?
There’s always nerves on your first day at a new job. You’re unfamiliar with the people and the company culture, plus there was the added nervousness of potentially running into a celebrity at any point. I saw Ellen Page on my first day in the office!
What was a highlight of your internship?
This is my first time working at a relatively new company, so the best part has definitely been the insight gained into the startup tech company culture.
What projects have you been working on?
I’m writing an algorithm to detect anomalies in product metadata that is continuously streamed in (hourly page views, engagement, revenue, etc.).
What was your biggest obstacle?
My biggest obstacle is using Google Products. Working with Google BigQuery (why is LegacySQL the default?), Google Collab (their version of Jupyter Notebook) and the Google Cloud Platform in general. I’m more familiar with other platforms, and so using these new tools added a little bit of a learning curve for me.
Carey Flack — Product Management Intern (NY)
Why did you apply?
Visiting BuzzFeed back in 2015 confirmed that I could 100% merge my love for tech, community, and design — and I left feeling so inspired about that and passionate about the work happening at BF. Fast forward a few years later and I met Essence Gant (BF’s Beauty Director) who told me about the summer internship program! I applied and the rest is history!
First day nerves…?
TBH, I was so nervous! The great thing about BuzzFeed though is that it’s such a welcoming environment. Starting off with a huge intern class helped too and made me even more excited to be at such a cool place like BF!
What projects have you been working on?
I’m on the Tasty team and have been working on a super dope video-centered inspiration feature designed to help users who don’t know what to cook™ 🤔 become users who cook IRL™ 👩🏽🍳. This project has included lots of competitive research, strategy meetings, and a pending A/B test! We’re also currently building out a recipe linking feature that allows food editors to easily link new recipes (like vegan chocolate cake) with already posted recipes (like vegan chocolate frosting). This feature will save our editors lots of time and also keep users within the Tasty ecosystem for longer (yay!).
What was a highlight of your internship?
So many things! Being able to work with such brilliant and fun people! Kicking off projects that are gonna transform the Tasty user experience! All of the laughs during team outings! The fun work and the good laughs are what make this place so great.
Other fun times include: helping prep for the Juneteenth Happy Hour with BIO (Buzzfeed’s Black ERG), taco Tuesday with the interns, hosting a community tech talk with the interns that over 150 people attended (!!!), and seeing Lil Nas X performed LIVE (I’m still freaking out).
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
I knew coding was hard, but dang y’all — haha! I’ve learned so much about Rig (our internal tool), GitHub, queries, pull requests, and code review thanks to Tasty’s engineering team. When I deployed my first little piece of code, them (and all of Tasty Tech) were also there to cheer me on! It was such an exciting win!
I’ve also learned a lot about high-level strategy. Getting in the weeds about a project is SOOO FUN, but also taking a step back and examining all opportunities is just as important!
Tell us about something you learned!
During my interview rounds, I knew I wanted to work with Tasty, but had to build up some major courage to even ask (spoiler alert: I’m glad I did haha). A huge theme for me this summer has been learning how to find my voice and use it! I’ve learned a lot and I’m excited to pay this good lesson forward for someone else!
Malcolm Mitchell — Software Engineering Intern (MN)
Why did you apply?
An alum from my college who now works for BuzzFeed shared the opportunity with my school. BuzzFeed seemed like a super personable, empathetic company so I gave it a shot.
First day nerves…
I was mostly nervous I’d mess up someone’s name. I’m terrible with names. Other than that I just smiled and nodded my way through.
What was a highlight of your internship?
I really enjoyed all the Design Club presentations. I definitely look forward to those every week. Those little bursts of pride I get every time I deploy some relatively insignificant change have also been highlights of my experience.
What projects have you been working on?
So far, I’ve spent the summer working to make the Tasty App feed more engaging by interleaving different groups of recipes alongside the recent recipes. This basically involves taking either trending recipes from the past week or historically popular recipes and crisscrossing them between the recent ones.
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
Controlling my free snack intake was tough for a bit. I’ve successfully limited myself to a granola bar and like two bags of nuts a day.
Tell us about something you learned!
Way more than I realize now, I think. A much better understanding of GitHub (and fear of pushing to master). I also know now how contributing to projects happens at tech companies with multiple offices. Working with people from different locations with different backgrounds has been really great.
What will you miss the most?
The Minneapolis office. It’s such a homey location (and it helps that everyone here is very welcoming).
Edward Tsien — Data Science Intern (LA)
Why did you apply?
I wanted to dip my toes back into the private sector and take a quick break from school (I’m doing a Ph.D. in Computer Science).
First day nerves…
A ton! I missed my subway stop and ended up being late! I also was the only intern being on-boarded at the LA office, so I got high-quality treatment, but just meeting a barrage of new faces on my first day was definitely a bit daunting.
What are some highlights from your internship?
Lunches, just hanging out with the LA crew on and off hours, and Summer Drinks/tea time!
What projects have you been working on?
Image classification magic on BuzzFeed.com, and bringing those results into the recommendation system.
Summarize some of your experience working in LA!
It was a lot of time in the sun. I made friends with a rad bunch of nerds and got to work with enterprise-scale stuff. I also get to see Hollywood on the way to work every day. Also, found out how Rig actually worked and made a fool of myself on slack (still am).
What will you miss the most?
The open and exciting atmosphere in the LA office. There’s always something going on. #tastyleftovers
Noshin Begum — Software Engineering Intern (UK)
First day nerves…
I walked into this beautiful building through the posh spinning doors. Signing into reception and waiting to go up into the office was the scariest time ever! I was a nervous mess until I walked into the office and saw a sign that read: “Welcome to BuzzFeed UK Damola and Noshin!”
What projects have you been working on?
I have been working on BuzzFeed’s Internet points, and it has been so fun! The whole process allowed me to experience every stage in creating a new feature. I got to study the designing process (amazing experience for my creative side), building the front-end of the badge, and then looking at all the back-end and API! It’s so amazing and inspiring seeing how much work is put into these features. When deployed onto BuzzFeed was the coolest (brag-worthy) highlight of my Internship! I worked on other smaller parts, like updating different pages or sections, and I even thought it probably had not much significance it was THE COOLEST EXPERIENCE deploying!
What was a highlight of your internship?
There were so many highlights! But meeting and hugging PrettyMuch and their private performance really stood out and pretty much breathing the same air as Eric Nam…
What were some notable obstacles you faced?
Fracturing my arm, so I was working slower than usual but everyone was so patient.
Whenever I found something difficult everyone was SOOOO helpful. They helped by demonstrating, sending helpful links, and sending docs to read. I feel like I have gained so much knowledge, new skills, and tricks. This is what I wanted out of this whole experience, I wanted to leave as a better student and person.
The obstacles and problems allowed all these smart experienced people around me to share and show all their tips and tricks which I’m pretty sure changed my academic life.
What have you learned?
I feel more grown academically, as an employee, and as a person. I know how hard I’ve worked, but despite the challenges I’ve been through and the doubts I’ve had, this whole experience taught me that challenges are not life-ending problems; there are people there to help and support you. I feel optimistic and excited about the future.
I’m so happy to have met all of the kind, talented, and helpful people around me. Everyone had so much patience when teaching and answering my millions of questions! What I gained here is something I know no other company will ever offer. I also earned my PR llama stuffed toy and named her “Queen”! Everyone in Tech at BuzzFeed London deserves a special shout out: I swear they’re the most helpful, funniest, and kindest people. That’s what I expected and wanted out of BuzzFeed, and I’m so glad that I got a chance to work alongside them.
Oyindamola Aderinwale — Software Engineering Intern (UK)
First day nerves…
I was nervous about working for a big company. I was worried that it would be like Lord of the Flies, but with super-smart people, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a welcoming and supportive environment.
What projects have you been working on?
My first project centered around easing the configuration of the recommender system API through separate .yml files for different platforms. The changes made it easier to control the behavior of the API across iOS, Android, and Web platforms. Additionally, the changes made testing the configuration of all the different routes easier.
My second project has been about improving ABeagle’s UI/UX, which is BuzzFeed’s internal A/B testing tool. My project was aimed at improving the usability and functionality of ABeagle, by adding new fields and features and redesigning the UI and API to take advantage of said features and fields. The overall impact is users will have all the details of their experiments/feature flags all in one place, instead of having some details in Google docs or JIRA tickets. Additionally, users can choose to see only experiments that their team is conducting!
What was a highlight of your internship?
There were so many amazing highlights, there are three that come to mind. My first highlight was when I got to meet Big Shaq, I was so excited because I loved his “Mans Not Hot” song and could not believe I got to meet him. The second highlight for me was meeting my favorite Nigerian Musician Adekunle Gold, I was fanboying so hard because I sing/listen to his songs every day!
The final highlight for me was also the social events with all my co-workers, it made me feel right at home and gave me the impression that I could approach anyone!
What was a notable obstacle you faced?
I had imposter syndrome early on, but that went away as I got things merged into master. Merging into master provided me with tangible proof, that I can contribute to the team, and also complete tasks that have been assigned to me! The little voice in the back of my head that was telling “You are not good enough”, suddenly disappeared into the ether never to be heard from again.
Tell us about something you learned!
I learned how to program in Go, which is a language that I was not too familiar with. It was an interesting experience to go from zero knowledge to having code in production. I learned to develop a growth mindset, as opposed to the fixed one I had about my circle of competence and abilities.
I have also learned how to properly function within a team, in terms of adapting to a new social dynamic and interaction well with orders. It was apparent from the tasks that were assigned to me and the already existing workflow, that I would need to lean on the other engineers on the site team. This pushed me out of my comfort zone, putting me in situations where I had to communicate clearly with other engineers to get feedback on my ideas or my PRs.
Interested in becoming an intern yourself? Keep an eye out for internship postings on the BuzzFeed jobs page here!
To keep in touch with us here and find out what’s going on at BuzzFeed Tech, be sure to follow us on Twitter @BuzzFeedExp where a member of our Tech team takes over the handle for a week!
