A Day in the Life of a Clutch Intern
Wow, what an exciting summer for all of us at Clutch! Each day started off everyday with our Intern Stand Up in Ambler, PA. In this meeting we discussed what we worked on the previous day, what we planned to work on that day, and any issues we needed help with to move forward. It was a great time to learn about what everyone else is working on within the company.
The four interns in Ambler also got together for an intern lunch every Thursday. We have become pretty close friends this summer! Our comradery has also helped us excel on several team projects over the course of the summer. Another opportunity we participated in was our own Retrospective where we discussed and reflected on aspects of our internships that we wanted to continue or alter moving forward. In addition, each intern kept a weekly activity log on the intern Confluence page and we used Jira to track our work so that everything was visible for our mentors to see!
While we learned a lot and worked hard, we also had fun. One event we participated in was a food drive in the office where each team had to make a display with their donations that they collected. Jojo and Raquel’s team took the win with their impressive castle of cereal boxes. We also joined in on the building’s barbecue picnic and Clutch’s Ohana Luau.
We would like to thank everyone that has helped us learn and grow this summer. It would not have been the same without the supportive community here at Clutch. Thank you!
Now – meet our awesome interns!
Jojo Tang – Project Management Intern
College: The Pennsylvania State University
Year: Senior
Major: Telecommunications
Minor: Information Science and Technology
Summary of Work: During my internship at Clutch I had the opportunity to work on multiple projects for different departments. One of my main projects focused on developing the learning management system for employee onboarding. I used LearnUpon to create courses that covered topics such as stored value, card production, and the Clutch platform.
Another project that I worked on was developing a database for integrations information. The goal of this project was to articulate and record the use and functionalities of active integrations so the information could be available to Clutch employees. To accomplish this, I designed and created a MySQL database and worked to implement it’s front end. In addition to these projects, I also led standups, created knowledge base documents and proposed best practices for using Slack and email communication.
Favorite Part of your Internship: My favorite part of my internship was constantly being challenged to solve complex issues. I loved being able to think creatively and on my feet to come up with new solutions.
What I Learned: Throughout my internship I learned a lot about devops and working in an agile environment. I really enjoyed seeing how teams worked together to do what was necessary to support the business. I also learned a lot about data integrity and database implementation by working on my projects.
What I Learned about Clutch: I learned that Clutch is constantly working with partners and creating new partnerships in order to provide brands with new technology and opportunities. With hundreds of integrations, Clutch is able to satisfy clients by meeting their various needs.
Goals for the Future: My goal for the future is to graduate in December 2018 with my bachelors degree from Penn State. I hope to pursue a career in IT project management.
Max Amsterdam- Software Development Intern
College: Columbia University
Year: Sophomore
Major/Minor: Computer Science
Summary of Work: During my internship at Clutch, I worked on two main projects within the technology department. Because of Clutch’s organic growth over the past 6 years, there are certain parts of their system that are dated. My first project involved integrating these older elements into Clutch’s new system to decrease server costs and increase efficiency. After this, I worked on a project which involved creating an easy-to-use testing tool that can generate large sets of data. The data acts as a representation of Clutch customers with different actions or events, such as the purchasing of products or receiving of emails.
Favorite Part of your Internship (and why): My favorite part of my internship at Clutch was working on projects that truly helped Clutch and the people who work for it. Although creating something with code for school or on my own can be rewarding, there is nothing that beats the feeling of directly helping a product that is used by hundreds of brands worldwide.
What I Learned: One of the most important things at Clutch is data. As such, everything I worked with revolved around gathering, transforming, and glamorizing data. Specifically, I learned about working with databases and APIs using languages and tools like Java, Scala, PHP, Play Framework, and PostgreSQL. However, even more impactful than the projects I worked on was the experience of working in a friendly and supportive workplace. The atmosphere at Clutch helped promote my curiosity and discussion with others, since I was not afraid to ask questions and start a conversation about a topic I found interesting. And since many of my tasks required collaboration and compromise among several people, Clutch taught me to prioritize my workflow and work well with others.
What I Learned about Clutch: I learned that Clutch uses data to learn about a brand’s customers. Clutch then takes that customer information and acts on it. This action and other services that Clutch provides result in increased sales, loyalty, and customer satisfaction for their clients.
Goals for the Future: My goal for the future is to graduate from Columbia with a computer science degree. After college, I hope to pursue a career in software development.
Raquel Dunoff – QA Intern
College: Olin College of Engineering
Year: Sophomore
Major/Minor: Engineering with a concentration in Design
Summary of Work: This summer, I have worked on a variety of different tasks to better understand the product and development processes. Every morning, I start my day by attending the Product Team daily standup. Here we check in with all of the team members and make sure everyone is clear on the day’s tasks. After that, I spend my day doing quality assurance tests for the platform and also working on longer term development projects as well. Some of the development projects I have worked on include a dynamic sitemap and the front end for a data generation tool. From these projects I have learned a lot about working on larger codebases and also more about myself as a developer.
Favorite Part of your Internship: My favorite part was the fun side projects I did around the Clutch office. Within the first week, I was building towers of boxed food to donate. The Fun and Wreck committee organized a friendly competition of which table could bring in the most food and also who could create the best display out of their donations. Another project I worked on was Jojo and I made a “Where is Clutch” board to create a visual of where everyone was working from. We cut out maps of the Philadelphia, Chicago and Rotterdam areas and provided push pins for people to show where they work from.
What I Learned: While at Clutch, I have learned a lot about how a product is made as I have had the opportunity to work in both the developer and QA roles. From my QA experience, I have gained an eye for quality as I completed many Jira tickets for the product team. From my developer experience, I learned that for my next internship, I want to focus more on UX design and front end web development. Being able to try out both of these roles has given be a broader perspective of what my future career could be.
What I Learned about Clutch: The best part about Clutch are the employees. Everyone is super nice and they form a community that supports each other in their endeavors. The leadership really cares about everyone’s work-life balance and makes sure that the team is a well running machine. Also, shout out to Ann and the RUMBA team for taking on the difficult, but important, task of creating a committee to help bridge the information gap between departments.=
Goals for the Future: This school year I will be working more on my first venture, Trendsetter Gear. We sell STEM field-inspired jewelry to empower women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Check out more at our site STEMTrendsetter.com
Katie Wakiyama- Business Development Intern
College: Elon University
Year: Junior
Major: Strategic Communications
Minor: Entrepreneurship
Summary of Work: This summer I had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects. One of my main focuses was working on tasks in Salesforce. I added client contracts into Salesforce which created a wide range of benefits, such as automatically notifying Relationship Managers before the contract expires. I also uploaded new contacts, leads and accounts into Salesforce. I worked with Data.com and Etailinsights to generate some of this content.
Besides my work involving Salesforce, I researched target verticals, prospective clients, and other business related objectives. I also reorganized our internal Confluence spaces and updated articles on Clutch’s support site through WordPress. On the creative side of things, I helped with writing and formatting an article, designing slides, and more. Along the way, I also worked with segmentation and other features in the Clutch Portal.
Favorite Part of your Internship: I really enjoyed being a part of meetings and sitting in on calls with prospective clients. I liked experiencing real life business situations because I could constantly pick up pieces of new information.
What I Learned: I learned a lot about the business development process and Salesforce as a whole this year. I worked with Salesforce briefly during my internship with Clutch last summer, but this year I gained a much deeper understanding.
What I Learned about Clutch: I learned some very interesting things about Clutch and our place in the industry this summer. Clutch was selected to be part of the Salesforce Accelerate Program before I started this spring, but I was here for our exciting debut with Salesforce. We learned about Journey Builder and how Clutch interacts with Salesforce. Similarly, I found it interesting to learn how we interact with other programs to produce the best possible outcomes for clients.
Goals for the Future: I am still unsure what field or role I want to pursue after graduating, but I am confident that I want to be in an engaging, supportive, and exciting work environment.
Jaclyn Fraum – Digital Marketing Intern
College: Villanova University (Undergraduate)
DePaul University (Graduate School)
Year: 1st year grad student
Undergraduate Major/Minor: Communications/Psychology
Graduate School Focus: Digital Communication and Media Arts
Summary of Work: This summer I worked closely with Kate and Kimmah to help move our marketing automation software from HubSpot to Marketo. In addition, helped to transfer our blog from HubSpot to WordPress to make sure that our transition was smooth as could be. Additionally, for the past few weeks I have been gathering and analyzing data for a lead analysis. In this I took our leads from HubSpot and Salesforce and looked up the industry of each lead, the size of the business and their revenue. From there I created multiple pivot tables help further analyze the data collected.
Favorite Part of your Internship: I really enjoyed learning about two different marketing automation softwares (Marketo & HubSpot). I was also fortunate enough to sit in on a week long advanced Marketo integration training which will be beneficially throughout my career in digital marketing. Another thing I enjoyed was working on creating content for social media!
What I Learned: I learned all about how to use Marketo and HubSpot. As well as how to create well functioning and concise campaigns. Going outside of the classroom and having hands on experience in this field was extremely beneficial.
What I Learned about Clutch: After completing the lead analysis, I learned quite a bit about the customers/future customers that are interested in our solutions. I also learned through the analysis that majority of interested businesses first are attracted by our Loyalty Program solutions.
Goals for the Future: My goal for the near future are to graduate with my masters degree in June of 2019. After graduation I plan to actively be pursuing a career in digital marketing.
