A Day in the Life of an Intern at Oscar | Blog | Oscar | hioscar Blog | Oscar
A Day in the Life of an Intern at Oscar
To shed light on our internship experience, we spoke to 6 interns in our engineering, product, and IT departments.
Behind the Scenes
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Launched in 2015, our Early Career programs have focused on finding, engaging, hiring, and developing the next generation of diverse and talented students who will build the future of healthcare. Through our program, we have continuously supported professional development for those early in their careers, which include current college students, new grads, and career changers through our internship, apprenticeship and new graduate programs.
Our internship experience is filled with virtual and in person opportunities such as Coffee Chats, Lunch and Learns, Professional Development workshops, and a dedicated Intern’s Week to celebrate National Intern’s Day. To shed light on our internship experience, we spoke to 6 interns in our engineering, product, and IT departments. Here’s what they had to say.
Name: Siema Alam
Location: New York, NY
Job Title: Product Manager (PM) Intern, Process Engineering
What made you decide to be part of Oscar’s Internship program and why did you choose to start your career in the healthcare industry? Growing up, I experienced challenges around healthcare. When I came across Oscar's mission of "making a healthier life accessible and affordable for all," I felt inspired to turn my aspiration to impact people's health in positive ways into reality. The internship program combines my passion for making healthcare better and leverages the skills I use daily and want to improve upon.
Job Title: Software Engineering Intern, Member Data API
What have you loved about your internship experience so far and what projects are you working on? I really love the culture at Oscar! Everyone has been incredibly supportive of my learning. I feel comfortable reaching out and scheduling a coffee chat with people to ask questions and talk about their work.
This summer I've been working on a new Application Programming Interface (API) endpoint with corresponding User Interface access that will reprice contracts for our members. Given that premium discrepancies are currently resolved manually by the operations teams, this new endpoint will not only simplify the process but also serve as the source of truth for premium repricing.
Name: Austin Nicola Ardisaputra
Location: Berkeley, CA
Job Title: Software Engineer Intern, Data Integrations
What does an average day / week look like on your internship? Although I am a software engineering intern, I do a lot more than just coding in Oscar. A lot of collaboration is involved, whether it’s attending regular stand-ups for my scrum team, having my regular one-on-ones with my engineering mentor, or meetings with my engineering team or early career mentor. A lot of internship-specific events also happen throughout the week. I especially enjoy the coffee chats, executive talks, and "Lunch and Learns.” Everyday is different as I tackle different challenges or work on different tasks, giving me endless opportunities to learn as much as possible.
What made you decide to be part of Oscar’s Internship program and why did you choose to start your career in the healthcare industry? Healthcare and technology are two big fields I am really passionate about. I am pursuing an undergraduate degree for both computer science and biochemistry, but I am unsure which profession I wish to pursue ultimately. Oscar provides a special opportunity that allows me to experience something from both professions.
Name: Abiha Amir
Location: New York, NY
Job Title: IT Intern
What have you loved about your internship experience so far and what projects are you working on? Everyone here at Oscar is super kind, welcoming, and friendly. Our in-person opportunities have allowed me to connect with different teams and employees as well. As for the project, I provide computer-based information system support for all of our offices in the US, which includes both software applications and computer hardware support. Additionally, I support the onboarding process for new employees by restoring and refactoring our computers for new Oscar employees.
What have you learned (whether technical or non-technical) and what advice would you give to anyone trying to make the most out of a similar opportunity? In terms of technical skills, I learned how to write a technical design document and consider different edge cases. I also learned the importance of building a scalable system, so that it can be extended by other people in the future. In terms of non-technical skill, I feel more comfortable communicating my thoughts to other team members, and have learned to deliver efficient communication to stakeholders like product managers.
If there is any advice I can give, I would say just take things slow. Figuring out a good idea and building a reliable system both take time. The same goes for building connections with other people. I believe we can achieve a great experience from the internship as long as we take time digging into the tasks and being open to feedback from others.
