Engineering breakthroughs create real-world impact
Jane Zeng gained valuable experience that helped her grow from having zero machine learning knowledge to solving problems with real company impact.
Jane Zeng, a third-year Software Engineering student, shares how she stood out in competitive interviews and how asking for help and embracing challenges shaped her into a stronger, more adaptable engineer.
Jane’s co-op journey
Software engineer intern, Scotiabank, Toronto, ON
Jane spent two co-op terms here where she took data from user activity on a website to train a search engine to provide more relevant results through machine learning (ML). Jane realized a few issues in the model and made suggestions on future improvements.
Developer intern, 1Password, Toronto, ON
She worked on the building and payment team where she managed the services customers would use to buy subscriptions for the password manager products. Jane got a lot of experience working in the back-end service where she would fix bugs in the system.
Q&A with Jane
What was your biggest challenge during your co-ops?
“On top of my six engineering courses and searching for co-ops, I had to search for design teams, opportunities or projects and build them in my own time to hopefully make my résumé stand out.”
“Plus, I also had no experience with artificial intelligence or ML. I had to learn the technologies as quickly as I could to apply them in a real production environment. There was quite a bit of pressure on first-year me who started from scratch.”
“Then, I ran into a roadblock when it came to asking my teammates for help because part of me wanted to prove myself capable and I knew my teammates were busy. I learned that it only slowed me down and because I'm part of a team, it would slow the team down. I was glad that my teammates made it clear that I could ask them questions and would come to check in on me. I owe a lot to them for helping me come out of my shell.”
Would you say that you learned more about your future career path through your co-ops or in the classroom?
“I think it's both. I did have a few electives and I learned what I liked through course work. From day one I liked what I was learning, for the most part. I wasn't bothered by linear algebra and calculus, I think part of that proved I was on the right track.”
“When it comes to software engineering, there's so much underneath it, and that's where co-op came in. I got a feel for what I liked and disliked but it’s also very team-dependent. Even if I were in the same role elsewhere, I'm sure if I didn't have such a supportive team, my co-op experience would have turned out very differently.”
What has been the most rewarding thing about co-op?
“At 1Password, I discovered the root cause of a bug that was costing the company thousands in annual revenue. Apparently they'd been searching for the bug for about six years and it just kept getting pushed on the back burner.”
“I was the first person to take a deep dive into it and figure out a possible root cause for the bug. When I finally created the program that would get rid of all these ‘leaky buckets’, it felt like a personal victory. Now I can say that I saved the company $60 thousand in annual revenue!”
When you see that my work has propagated out to help many users and make it easier on the company, it feels good. It's very rewarding.
How have you dealt with stress over the course of your co-op terms?
“There were moments where I was stressed out of my mind because I couldn't figure out something for the life of me. When that happened, I learned to recognize that I was in a stressed state and probably won't get much done if I continue with a foggy head. To defy this, I'd take a step back, maybe a 15-minute break and then try to look at the phenomenon from a new perspective.”
“I also gradually got better at asking for help from teammates because it turns out there were many problems that I would have never figured out on my own if someone didn't assist me. I owe a lot to the environments I worked in because the worst response I got to asking for help was, ‘I don't know, shall we hop on a call together?’ Their support helped take a lot of my stress away.”
How do you make yourself stand out as a student who’s applying for competitive jobs?
“I try to focus more on the impact my projects made by telling them why I did it and what it means to me. People seem to appreciate that kind of passion.”
"I would also try to say a few things about their company that are less obvious. For example, it wasn't just that I took a curious glance at 1Password’s website to see what they do. I looked carefully at their internship experience and values. Then, when they asked me, ‘Why do you want to work in security?’, instead of just stating what everyone knows, I told them a story about a scam attack attempt my family and I experienced in the past. That experience was absolutely terrifying and it was at that moment that I realized the importance of software engineering and cybersecurity. I never wanted anyone to feel like that again. I think it's when you make things personal and show that their company matches the values in your heart, it really makes you stand out more.”
What's next for you?
“I want to get better at my time management skills and stay on top of my tasks because I struggled a lot with burnout and falling behind, especially in my 2B term, and I don't want that to happen again.”
“Career-wise, I'll go where the wind takes me. I want to get more into embedded systems and robotics, so I've been exploring new design team opportunities. But if some place wants to hire me based on my previous experiences in back-end engineering or ML, I'm all for it as I genuinely enjoyed those experiences. I'm open to exploring new companies with higher stakes or greater scalability to enhance my skills. I hope my next co-op will be another steppingstone to both developing my technical skills and learning who I am and what I really want.”
“My ultimate goal is to find something I'm passionate about and can see myself enjoying. I learned that not every co-op is equivalent; not every place is a good fit for everyone. I learned to channel my thinking from which job pays more into which job is a better fit for me. I don't know about you, but can’t see myself working a six days a week, while others might and that’s okay. I know I'm going to have to explore a lot of things first because software engineering is so multilayered. That’s why I'm in co-op, I think any experience is good experience.”