Reflecting on my Internship Experience at Tanium

Overview

This past summer, I worked at the Cybersecurity company Tanium, which primarily deals with providing endpoint protection at scale. The experience was probably the best introduction I had to what a career in software engineering would look after graduating from university.

Initial Thoughts

Initially, I was a little bit nervous joining Tanium because one, the company was not public so I was worried that the work would be incredibly demanding requiring more than the usual eight hours of work expected, and second, the recruiting process was a little more rigorous so I thought the expectations would be higher. Luckily, as my summer went on, I realized that although the work was a little more challenging than any of my prior experiences, the processes and support was also a lot more comprehensive allowing me to really develop the skills that would be useful throughout the internship and beyond in my career.

The Product

Tanium is a company that helps big organizations keep track of and protect all the computers, servers, and devices connected to their network. Imagine a giant school with hundreds of computers and tablets, Tanium gives the school's IT team a tool that lets them see what's happening on every device in real time. They can use this tool to make sure all the devices are up to date, secure, and working properly. If there's a problem, like a security threat or a device that's not working right, they can quickly fix it using Tanium. In simple terms, Tanium is like a control center for managing and protecting a large number of computers and devices. It helps organizations keep everything running smoothly and safely, ensuring that no device is at risk of being hacked or malfunctioning. By using Tanium, organizations can spot problems early, respond quickly to threats, and make sure all their devices are secure and up to date.

Internship Experience

Intern Responsibilities at Tanium

So the one thing that Tanium does during the internship that I found to be super helpful is that they put you on a team and then have you contribute to the team as another member rather than being siloed off into some sort of internship project or other task that doesn't involve the rest of the team. This meant that I had the same responsibilities as the full time engineers on the team and basically was involved in everything that my team worked on.

For example, while I was an intern there, we were working on this general spring that had to do with implementing a specific feature that was requested by many customers. Rather than working on my own project, I was put on to the team Jira and was tasked with completing as many tickets as possible for the sprint that dealt with feature implementation, bug fixes, and code maintenance. We would talk about the progress on my tickets, and everyone elses tickets at standup three times a week so that we were all up to date on the code base changes, and what is going on within our specific product.

At the end of the internship all of the interns talked about the specific product that they worked on, and in general what they contributed to Tanium which was really fun to watch.

Things I Learned from working at Tanium

I think the most important thing I learned at Tanium is that when you are writing code, it is important to think about the maintainability of the code in the long run, and how that will help you in the future. When you are working on a ticket that has been irritating you, it might be tempting to just finish it off with some spaghetti code, but it will always come back to bite you, or someone else in the ass in the future. It's better to contribute something that will not need to be touched in the future.

Another important thing that I think most people are aware of, is to always ask for help. Working on a large codebase can be really complicated and it is essential to ask for help through parts of it, especially if an engineer has worked on it before and is still active in the company.

Swag/Benefits at Tanium

I was based in the Emeryville office which is located near Berkeley. It was on the top floor of the building and had sweeping views of the entire Bay, and the golden gate bridge which was beautiful. Every day for lunch, the office catered food which we could select up to a day in advance. Tanium also gave us a free backpack, sweater, and a lot of tshirts which was sick.

Takeaways

• Ask for help before it's too late. Deadlines are a thing and there is no point mucking around when you are clearly stuck.
• Learn language you are working on in depth, because there are probably things that exist that will help you a lot to write clean, maintainable code.
• Split things up in an organized fashion. If a function is more than 20 lines, consider that it might have to be split up somehow.

Concluding Remarks

I think Tanium is a great place to do an internship because you will be working with the latest technology, get mentorship from some great people in the field, and also have the opportunity to contribute like a real team member, something that is super underrated.

I would like to thank my mentor Seva and my manager Israel for being so helpful and dependable throughout my entire internship. I would also like to thank our intern coordinator Bella for being such a great resource throughout the entire internship. She would always plan such great events and give us the most throughout our summer.