Welcome, Summer 2021 Plinterns!

In celebration of National Intern Day, we’re excited to introduce our newest and largest class of Plaid interns—also known as Plinterns! We have been very impressed with our 17 dynamic Plinterns, who have all been working so hard alongside us virtually this summer. Let’s meet some of the crew.

Meet Wallace Lim!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
During this last year, my friends started researching all things personal finance like stock trading and cryptocurrency. When we would sign up for these apps, the Plaid logo kept appearing whenever we wanted to link our bank accounts. That's when I learned about Plaid and its place in the middle of the fintech ecosystem. After this realization, I knew I had to work for the company!

What has been your favorite moment so far?
Meeting the Plaid team! Everyone is always willing to take time out of their busy day to have a quick chat. I really appreciate the culture that Plaid has fostered that encourages coworkers to meet one another. A remote internship can be tough, however, I have met so many great people and this has definitely helped me feel more welcomed while working from home.

What are you most excited for?
I'm excited about my internship project! From my past experience, companies tend to choose between safety or impact when selecting a project for their interns. Plaid definitely leans on the impactful side and selects tasks that are preexisting on the team's future roadmap as projects for interns. Even as an intern, I feel the work I accomplish here will be impactful towards Plaid's future success.

Meet Kate Gruber!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
Cristina Ciaravalli and Emerald Maravilla, both on the Plaid sales team, hosted a Plaid information session at the Wake Forest Business School during my sophomore year. They discussed at length how special the Plaid culture is and how maintaining this culture is a top priority for everyone at the company. I instantly knew that I wanted to be a part of an organization that values its employees as much as they described. That, coupled with all of the revolutionary things that the company is doing for the financial industry, was what ultimately sealed the deal for me.

What was your first day like here at Plaid?
My first day at Plaid was a rollercoaster of so many positive emotions. Though I was extremely nervous, I will never forget opening my computer on the first day and seeing all of the warm and welcoming messages from people at all levels of the organization. I can attest that it made all of the interns feel extremely valued and instantly removed any nerves that we may have previously had.

What are you most excited for?
One of my favorite things about this entire summer at Plaid has been the opportunity to meet so many amazing people. Up until this point, I have formed so many great relationships and have had amazing conversations with people from all different backgrounds. Therefore, with the four short weeks I have left this summer, I am beyond excited to continue my existing relationships and to form many new ones!

Meet Niko Ramirez!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
I first learned of the company when I visited the Plaid booth at a virtual MIT Career Fair. During the career fair, I noticed how much I enjoyed meeting and speaking with everyone on the team. Regardless of my conversations with different companies, I kept thinking of Plaid. When I started the interviewing process, I had a great experience with every Plaid team member. Based on my conversations, I could tell that everyone was really happy to be working at Plaid. Overall, the company culture is what drew me in.

What new skills are you looking to gain this summer?
I am looking to develop greater technical depth, build my project management skills, and improve my design choices. In addition, I am hoping to enhance my collaboration and communication skills in order to be a more effective engineer and team member. Now that I am a couple of months in, I feel that I have experienced different levels of growth for all of these!

Meet Justin Saintil!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
Although I have been using Plaid ever since I entered college and became indoctrinated in the Venmo culture, I found out about Plaid through my friend who was working at Brex. He explained how Brex was able to completely reinvent the credit card underwriting industry by using Plaid’s technology and this sent me down the rabbit hole of learning about the plethora of Plaid customers and applications.

What has been your favorite moment so far?
There are so many options to choose from! I really enjoy Zach Perret's, Plaid's CEO, weekly Q&As, and the coffee culture program, which sets up weekly informal conversations with different pillars of the business. One event that sticks out was the time that the New Business team cooked steak together — an activity that really separates the chefs from the people who are stepping into the kitchen for the first time. The opportunity to laugh over food and get to know people outside of work was an unforgettable experience.

Meet Melissa Robertson!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
I was going through large online lists of software development internships to find companies that I was interested in applying to. Plaid caught my eye because of its name, and when I visited Plaid's website I was really impressed with how clearly the mission was communicated. I felt like I could understand right away why Plaid is such an impactful company.

How would you describe the application process for an internship at Plaid compared to past experiences?
It was very thorough, in every way! My prior internship, a government research internship, had a single phone interview and no coding interview. In comparison, Plaid's application process was more rigorous, but also a great experience for industry job-hunting. I appreciated that in addition to evaluating my fit with Plaid, the process also gave me plenty of opportunities to evaluate whether Plaid fit with my own values and career goals.

What are you most excited for?
I am most excited for the day when I finally pull all the various components of my project together at the end of the summer and get to see it, hopefully, work! Knowing that I've contributed something of real value during my time here is a reward all on its own.

Meet James King!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
I was initially drawn to Plaid by several things. I wanted to be able to experience working for a smaller but fast-growing organization, a contrast with previous experiences. Additionally, I wanted to get a taste of the world of Fintech, and Plaid is definitely one of the more central organizations in the field. Finally, being able to read blog posts about the experiences of Plinterns from previous years gave me a glimpse of the exciting and unique program that Plaid offered.

How would you describe the application process for an internship at Plaid compared to past experiences?
I initially submitted an application via API, which is something I had never done before but thought was pretty cool. While the interviews were challenging at times, I felt that they were very fair - I was able to use my own setup to code, as opposed to some unfamiliar online IDE, and everyone I talked to was cordial and encouraging. Additionally, I was able to get a picture of what it was like to work at Plaid, both through conversations with my interviewers, as well as through several coffee chats with engineers.

What are you most excited for?
I am most excited to continue experiencing life at Plaid. The culture here is super positive and encouraging, and there are always unique events to participate in. Everything from interesting Slack channels to coffee chats to Q&A sessions with Plaid’s CEO, Zach Perret, has really shown me that Plaid cares about its culture. This was something I had heard about prior to the start of my internship, but it really is amazing to experience Plaid culture firsthand!

Meet Eric Zhu!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
The biggest factor that drew me to Plaid was the conversations I had with the engineers after each of my interviews. One after another, I could feel that they genuinely enjoyed their work and the people surrounding them. I was definitely drawn by the praises of a culture where engineers helped each other learn and grow, and I have been able to experience that firsthand throughout this internship.

What was your first day like here at Plaid?
My first day at Plaid was quite hectic, but I was definitely able to learn a lot from it! We started with tech setup and then dove into many onboarding sessions. Though my day was packed back-to-back, I found the onboarding sessions really informative about many different aspects of Plaid, including security, products, marketing, etc. The presenters were really welcoming and brought so much energy to each onboarding session. They helped paint a clear picture of where Plaid stood in the financial ecosystem and all of the different moving parts needed to help Plaid run smoothly. Towards the end of the day, I was able to meet my whole team and learn about their role inside of Plaid.

What has been your favorite moment so far?
My favorite moment so far has been deploying my onboarding project, which allowed Plaid engineers to restart their own developer environment. Being able to bring a long-requested feature to the developers at Plaid allowed me to feel the impact I was making immediately. I was already full of excitement when the feature worked locally, but hearing feedback about it and seeing others use the feature is always a highlight of my day!

Meet Miranda Lin!

What initially drew you to Plaid?
Having already spent a summer interning at Plaid, I chose to return for a plethora of reasons. First, I absolutely loved the people I met here last summer. Everyone was super friendly and willing to help, and it really felt like my opinions were valued at Plaid. People are so open to feedback and always willing to go out of their way to help you. It definitely felt like the internship was focused on helping me grow. I also really enjoyed the work, I was given projects that were related to my interests and it felt like there were lots of interesting problems to be solved.

What new skills are you looking to gain this summer?
I'm hoping to better apply what I've learned in classes to a practical setting. There's a lot that can't be simulated in a classroom environment. I'm also looking to get out of my comfort zone this summer. I hope to better understand how I can grow and maximize my learning during this internship.

Recruiting for our next class starts in the fall, if you are interested in joining our 2022 Plintern class, check out our careers page!