Name: Zainab Batool
Class Year: 2021
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Karachi, Pakistan
Internship Organization: Fidelity Investments
Job Title: Software Engineer Intern
Location: Merrimack, N.H.
What’s happening at your internship?
At my internship at Fidelity Investments I am working as an Android Platform developer on the mobile team. One of the most interesting aspects of my internship is that I get to not only experience the technical part of a software engineer’s job but also see the other aspects involved in building an application, such as design and research! Since I am working in a financial company it is also interesting to observe the more “fintech” aspects that one would not typically see in a purely tech company.
The cool thing about Fidelity is that I am not limited to the team and group I am working with, but everyone is more than willing to have me observe the workings of multiple different teams. I have been able to observe the various roles one can take on as a software engineer or technology graduate such as mobile or web developer, test engineer or site reliability engineer, among others.
When I initially applied for this internship I wanted to explore the different directions that I could take for the rest of college and then post-graduation. As a potential double physics and computer science major, I had researched for physics last year but wasn’t completely sure if research was something I wanted to do as a career choice and wanted to explore more options. Coding and front-end development where you can see instant results of your efforts is something that gives me that “instant gratification,” fix and luckily I landed a spot as a mobile developer intern. Fidelity developers are primarily web developers so I ended up being extremely lucky to get this role.
Not just the work but my team and group have really welcoming work cultures to encourage a relaxed and collaborative work environment and are leaders within Fidelity in that sense, which has also been really fortunate for me to experience such freedom and support!
Last but not the least, I can say without any hesitation that the other interns at Fidelity that I have befriended this summer are a huge part of the success of this summer. From thinking that living in small ol’ Merrimack would be dull and slow to karaoke-ing, going to NYC or Boston, escape rooms and what not every weekend — who would have thought?! As there is just one week left for my internship to end I am genuinely sad to be leaving “Brian and the boys” who have been such great buddies these three months. I’ll miss them and Fidelity!