Meta summer intern spotlight: Aidan B.

Aug 04 2022

Meta summer intern spotlight: Aidan B.

By Meta Careers

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This blog is a part of a series of summer 2022 interns who were interviewed about their journey to Meta and the projects they worked on during their summer internships.

Name: Aidan B.
School: Duke University
Role: Production engineer intern
Team: Instagram machine learning PE
Meta office location: New York

"Aidan B. smiling standing in front of a water feature."

What project work did you work on this summer in your internship?

My team, IGML PE (Instagram machine learning production engineering), supports the algorithms and data pipelines which source, rank and ultimately determine which suggested posts, reels and stories appear on feeds. My summer project essentially tracks the behind-the-scenes allocation of physical computing resources, or servers, to and from the IGML services that we maintain and the many impulses which contribute to their movements dynamically throughout the day.

What is your favorite thing about the team or project you are working on this summer?

My favorite thing about my project is that it is extremely cross-repo, meaning that I have gained exposure to many different areas of the Meta codebase and as a result many different languages and workflows. The core components are written in Python but it interacts with a number of different components written in Hack, JavaScript and C++. I also love the freedom that engineers have at Meta; it is an extremely engineer-centric environment and, even as an intern, I have been able to set the trajectories of many of my project's deliverables.

What is the top thing you’ve learned from the internship or project so far?

The first thing that comes to mind has been learning the importance of asking (good) questions when blocked on something. A good question is one that shows what you know about the subject, what you've tried already to become unblocked, and gives any relevant context to help the person you're asking the question to help you most efficiently.

What advice do you have for high school seniors interested in a career in tech?

Try to take as many non-STEM courses that genuinely interest you while in college! Especially ones involving some written component. I've learned that there is much more to a successful career in tech than pure technical prowess: You need to be able to communicate effectively what you're doing and what you've done, both verbally and on paper. It’s also never too early to start building your interviewing skills—you will be positioned far ahead of the pack if you do so diligently. Lastly, I recommend practicing technical coding questions, focusing on building pattern recognition skills across problems and applying those to ones you haven't seen before.

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