Hi, I’m Katie! I’m a sophomore studying CS at Stanford. I like CS, but I like design and community-building even more. I hope to carve a career out in the tech field — vague, I know — so I’m currently foraging in the dark to figure out exactly what I mean by that. Of course, I grew curious about the entrepreneurship hype and began searching for startups to intern at.

Soon enough, I found Terra API! They were a top sponsor at TreeHacks 2024, where I was on the organizing team. I loved their upbeat “no BS” energy. Who wouldn’t want to intern on a team of British gym bros in their early 20s constantly failing to land skibidi jokes? Exactly.

After several rounds of interviews, I received an offer to intern as their sole Growth Engineer at their HQ in London. Soon enough, after my internship with Microsoft ended, I hopped on a plane to the UK. Terra API’s main product is an API (duh) that helps developers easily receive data from wearables — a very classic creative B2B SaaS type company.

In my role, I began detailing outreach events for potential customers, handling hackathon sponsorships, and strategizing for better customer acquisition. I also got to code some demos using our API + hand drew our hoodie design for HackMIT! At a 15 person startup, you definitely get to wear many hats.

I was incredibly lucky to get to do two internships this summer! Big tech vs. startups are like two polar ends of the same spectrum. For scale, Microsoft has over 200,000 employees and Terra had less than 20. Microsoft’s Redmond HQ felt like a huge city ecosystem of its own, with transport systems, restaurants, and huge buildings.

The culture was quite relaxed, friendly, and a bit bureaucratic. Most people clocked out at 5pm sharp. All our work was very structured and documented. It was very easy to find mentorship, whether informally or formally. If you’re someone who finds comfort in structure and values predictability in your work, you’d like Microsoft’s environment.

However, if you value having more agency over your work and don’t mind voluntarily putting in unreasonably long hours, a startup like Terra would be a better match. On the positive side, it felt like a friend group with shared goals rather than just a company.

We sent memes and strings of creative curses on the company group text, grabbed lunch together every day, and held kickbacks in the WeWork til midnight. On the not so positive side, startup work can be really disorganized with plenty of miscommunications and last-minute crams.

Plus, if you’re working full-time, the job security really isn’t there. Startups often come with a looming feeling that the company could start failing in a blink of an eye. For example, if a single major customer isn’t paying up, the company morale can get really gloomy really quickly.

You don’t see those effects at a huge company — even the day that the literal global Crowdstrike/Microsoft incident happened, barely anyone at Microsoft was visibly upset over it. It just wasn’t a concern to the average employee.

Overall, I absolutely adored my time at both internships. My intern cohort at Microsoft was super tight knit (which is unusual for most big tech intern programs) so I simply had a blast in both Seattle and London this summer.

When choosing startups to work at, choose wisely. Each startup is way different from the next — a 10-person company is infinitely different than a 100-person one. Look at the types of people who work there; usually they all fit similar archetypes.

For example, given the fitness-tech nature of the company, Terra was comprised of gym bros, making me the only girl for the majority of my internship. That could be a dealbreaker for a lot of people, so make sure you do research on whether you’d get along with the company culture before you join.

Startups are 100% defined by the people working there. If you aren’t fitting in socially, it’ll definitely impact how much you enjoy the work. Also, one of the key parts of startup work is making sure you’re very clear on what your job is. It’s usually not super defined in your job description, so in order to actually be productive and learn things, you need to be taking on extra tasks and creating your own projects that benefit the company.

You’re 100% responsible for driving your own experience, like initiating meetings with the CEO or setting your own deadlines. You need to be very proactive, or else you won’t contribute or learn much. For startup internships, you really get out what you put in!

💡 Please connect with me on LinkedIn HERE and send me the word “Interested” if you’d like to have your intern story featured on CareerNow with more than 14,700 readers! 💡

Instagram has introduced new "teen account" settings to enhance safety for young users. Accounts for teens under 18 will automatically be made private, and content restrictions will apply. Teens aged 13 to 15 will need parental approval to change settings, while 16- and 17-year-olds can adjust them manually.

These changes follow scrutiny from the 2021 "Facebook Papers," which highlighted risks for young users. Instagram's parent company Meta has implemented over 30 tools for teen well-being, but critics argue the platform still places too much responsibility on parents and teens to ensure safety. Read more HERE from CNN.

Nike CEO John Donahoe is stepping down on October 13, to be succeeded by longtime Nike veteran Elliott Hill, who is coming out of retirement. Donahoe, who has led Nike since January 2020, will remain as an advisor until January 2025.

Hill, who worked at Nike for 32 years, is expected to guide the company through its next growth phase. The leadership change comes as Nike faces challenges, including declining sales and criticism over its shift toward direct-to-consumer strategies. Nike shares rose 8% following the announcement. Read more HERE from CNBC

Cold DMs matter more than you think.

After I began to cold DM professionals in my field, company recruiters, and students with similar passion projects, I was able to not only build a strong network but also find amazing opportunities for the future.

I was able to coffee chat with a handful of inspiring professionals through these cold DMs and even the short online conversations played a role in guiding me in my early career journey.

That’s why I created 40 customizable cold DM templates for students and all job seekers for these instances:

➤ Reaching out to an alumni

➤ Introducing yourself as a candidate to recruiters

➤ Connecting with professionals in your aspiring profession

➤ Asking for a coffee chat

➤ Brief introductions (send a note with your invite)

Stop sending cold DMs of “I’d love to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”, and start sending these cold DMs to actually get responses back.

Even if you don’t get a response back, at least you didn’t throw away your shot by only giving a one sentence message.

Take a look HERE for the full Notion page.