Software Development Engineering Intern Review

I was a Software Engineering Intern on a machine learning platform team, building features and fixing bugs across an internal AutoML platform (backend ML engine, pipeline orchestration, and a full-stack web app). I worked from a shared backlog, collaborated with senior and principal engineers, picked up unfamiliar infrastructure quickly, and wrote internal documentation to share what I'd learned.

Yes, significant. My main project took a discarded intermediate output from the platform's training process and made it fully deployable end-to-end — it shipped to production. I also independently found and fixed several bugs I surfaced myself, owned a full feature extending an existing tool, and led a workstream requiring real design decisions after an initial approach proved unreliable. I presented my work to senior leadership at a final showcase, and was trusted to make architectural calls.

Yes, a lot. I went from no prior experience with the team's tech stack to shipping production features on a large internal engineering platform, including debugging distributed systems issues and building safeguards around AI-generated code. I also grew my soft skills, working across a global remote team, writing technical documentation, and presenting my work to senior stakeholders.

I received excellent support throughout. I had a dedicated line manager, a technical mentor for day-to-day guidance, and a separate contact for general wellbeing check-ins, so I always had someone to turn to whether the question was technical or personal.

My team was very collaborative and I felt genuinely trusted with real ownership over my project rather than being sidelined as 'just an intern.' I felt that this matched very well with Expedia Groups values, especially their emphasis around ownership, collaboration and "succeeding together". There was also a strong sense of purpose and openness, with regular opportunities to connect with people outside my immediate team.

I really enjoyed it. I was given real ownership over meaningful work rather than busywork, learned a huge amount in a short time, and finished the internship having shipped a feature to production and presented my work to senior leadership.

Yes