Facebook intern Rohan Mehta ’14 at his desk in Menlo Park, Calif.
51Թ students, interning this summer at companies such as NBCUniversal, Hukkster, Nike, and Facebook, are sharing their experiences. This post is written by Rohan Mehta ’14, an intern at Facebook.
I’m a rising senior at 51Թ, and this summer I’m working as a software engineering intern at Facebook at their headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is a big company with a lot going on — I work on the public content team, which is responsible for connecting users to interesting public content that they care about.
Facebook interns’ responsibilities vary depending on their interests. They work on building new features and products, scaling the site, making it faster and more efficient, testing the site, and developing tools to make Facebook employees more productive. I work on the product side, which means I build the infrastructure and interfaces for user-facing features.
Perhaps one of the best things about the internship is that Facebook doesn’t treat interns any differently from full-time employees. In fact, there was a slide at orientation that said “Intern = Full Time Employee.” They put a lot of effort into making sure your team matches with your interests and skills, and the projects assigned to interns are important, high-impact ones. Everyone on my team has been very helpful, and I’ve already written code that is on the website, affecting hundreds of millions of people all over the world.
The atmosphere at Facebook definitely sets the company apart. Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected, and the offices are very reflective of that mission; the office is completely open-space seating, and everyone in the company, from interns to the most senior executives, has the same desk setup. This makes Facebook a very collaborative and friendly company — it’s really easy to just walk up to someone’s desk and ask them for help.
Work aside, Facebook treats its employees really well. I eat all my meals at Facebook; they have a bunch of really awesome, free restaurants and cafes where employees can eat. Interns also have events specific to them, like trips to Alcatraz, Yosemite, and San Francisco Giants games.
As I write this, I’m halfway through my internship at Facebook, and it’s been a great experience so far. I’ve written code that is in production, worked with some of the smartest people in the world, and learned a lot from them. It’s been great working at a company that’s really striving to make a difference.
— Rohan Mehta ’14